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Following a Mandarin through a massive Californian Packhouse

We are going to follow a mandarin today.   We are going to visit a fruit packhouse, it is my last day in Central California. Nothing you will see  is sustainable or organic and absolutely nothing is old fashioned. But interesting nevertheless. 

This packhouse  packs the Cutie mandarins.  Mostly I am interested in the architectural shapes created in a packhouse. They are designed specifically to be efficient, so everything is refined right down to the essentials.  Also the grading machines themselves are created with extraordinary precision. On walking into the packhouse we were hit with a fresh blast of citrus.  If they could only bottle that scent! The fruit is washed and scanned and runs along these lanes and onto the grader.

This packhouse is  400,000 square feet. Each fruit drops into its own individual cup and travels along the grader. 

500 fruit per minute per lane, 10,000 fruit per minute on this one machine! In its own cup the mandarin is pre graded for blemish, colour,  density and weight.  Then onto another belt and sent through a wall, in a river of orange, to be waxed then onto the next series of graders that grade for size. 

None of these images can capture the vastness of this arena of fruit. Each piece of fruit can be graded multiple times depending on the market. The girls do a last quality check before bagging. This packhouse that sends your Cuties to your supermarket is absolutely pristine. I was very impressed. 

Automation everywhere.

The bagging machine is behind glass and fascinated me!

And off to the market.there is always a shadow..

c

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67 responses to “Following a Mandarin through a massive Californian Packhouse”

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  3. How fascinating! How on earth did you get in there? I have an image of you as a leather clad Bond Girl scaling walls with your camera slung over your shoulder and some night vision specs! I love factories – had a contract with a big dairy company in the UK and most of the processes were very highly automated but there were two sites where the cheese was still made “traditionally” on a small scale – I loved going up to visit, especially as there were always tastings!

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  4. I do love visiting places like this, too… On one trip to France, we went to two vineyards. The first was a tiny (10 hectare) family-owned place where everthing was still done by hand, and the bottling equipment – and crew! – were rented every year. The second was a gleaming modern facility, that sorted on belts and had fancy instruments to check the sugar content of the grapes as they rolled past…

    Both were fascinating.

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  5. I love touring places like that! If you ever have a chance to visit Oregon you can tour the Tillamook cheese factory. A tourist favorite but quite interesting to see how it all works. Oh, and I am eating a Cutie right now for breakfast! Quite the ko-inky-dink, wouldn’t you say? 😉

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    • At this time of year it should only take as long as it takes the truck to drive there I would imagine, they will not be paying to store them, so they are packed and moved out very fast! c

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  10. I love those tangerines. My mom always put one in the toe of our Christmas stockings, which was the same thing her mom in Scotland did. We, of course, did not appreciate it nearly as much as Grandma did when she was small. I do it for my kids too, and they don’t get it at all so I have to remind them every year why we do it – to remind them to be thankful for the abundance they have and to think of wee Grandma all those years ago being thrilled over a simple tangerine!

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  11. Machinery and citrus! Great! I wonder if the workers ever get tired of the smell. Or like me say it smells like money! (except citrus would definitely smell better than my line of work)

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