The cherry season roughly runs for about six week a year. During that short time frame, the cherry sorter of OG Packing packs between 1 and 2 million boxes of cherries. “We started the last part of April, which is one of the earliest starts in history,” says Daniel Moznett with OG Packing. I expect the facility to shut down towards the end of May,” he added.
California is on its way to harvest about five to six million boxes of cherries this year. “Not a great crop, but nearly triple the volume from last year,” said Moznett. “In a good year, the State has the potential to produce 9 million boxes.”
Hand-harvest
OG Packing receives cherries from different parts of California. The company works with local growers from the Stockton area who bring their cherries to the facility themselves. For growers outside the area, OG arranges shipping on refrigerated trucks. All cherries are hand-harvested as machines do not allow for the stems to stay attached to the fruit.
As soon as the cherries enter the packing facility, they go into a hydro cooling room where they stay for about two hours until they have an inside temperature of 32⁰F. Each bin with cherries is labeled to allow for traceability back to the grower if needed.
Sorting by size and type of defect
Once out of cold storage, the cherries make their way through the sorting machine. First, they are being washed and leaves are fished out of the water with nets. At the same time, the cherries make their way through the cluster cutter. This machine cuts the stem of bunches of cherries. OG has been using a cluster cutter since 1954.
During the next step, each cherry passes through a machine where it is automatically sized and sorted for quality. A total of 72 lanes operate at the same time. The machine takes multiple images of the cherry in less than a second and sends the information to a computer. The computer then sorts each cherry by size and type of defect.
To guarantee high quality, the sorted cherries undergo one final manual check before they are being packed. OG cherries are packed in pouch bags that go in a carton.
Important export market
“The US is our best market for cherries,” says Moznett. “However, we also send about four airplanes per week to Europe. Norway, the UK and the Netherlands are important markets for us. Spain’s cherry harvest is a little later and as a result, we only have a little window to send to Europe.” The company’s cherries travel all over the world with Canada, Brazil and Australia being other important destinations.
For more information:
Daniel Moznett
OG Packing
Tel: (+1) 209-931-7900
