| pupdaddy12003 - 8/29/2015 21:23
...that's one of the reasons Heinz quit processing tomatoes in Fremont, Ohio. They claimed (wink) they could get better product out of California..and elsewhere shipped in, because the risk of rain wasn't anywhere near what it was here in Ohio. Of course one of their production supervisors let it slip on record one day that he could make paste cheaper than they could buy it.....consequently he was let go.....
One of the reasons why Heinz closed their California plants in the late 90's is because they could get paste delivered to the port of Oakland cheaper than they could buy tomatoes in the field a few miles inland.
The other problem was the plants had quite a bit of wastewater they had to get rid of and the city sewer treatment plants were subsidizing their rates with what they were charging the plants for water that was used to wash dirt off tomatoes. The other issue was the labor contracts made plant upgrades ingsinifant as the clause was no job left behind.
When bulk processors came online I.e. Morningstar, tomatech, rio bravo Los Gatos & JGB they could run those plants with a half a dozen people opposed to Heinz and Tri Valley that took a few hundred people to produce the same amount of product. Also the plants were located in places where the wash water could be used to grow pasture, silage, or cotton and eliminated that huge cost. |
Tomato growing
