Back on the Farm

In this post I would like to unleash some of the tasks that are put into practice each day at the farm in order to get out the produce into the market. I will talk about the biggest seller the company currently has first: Tomatoes.

The first thing that must be done once the tomatoes have grown and are ready to be harvested is to pick them. There are two very large greenhouses with an abundance of tomatoes on site. A worker will begin on each end of the greenhouse and go through with totes to put the tomatoes in, a wagon to pull the totes on, and a pair of cutters to remove the stems from the tomatoes. It depends on how many tomatoes are coming in each day, but on an average day it takes about 4 hours in the greenhouse for the workers to pick the produce for the day. After the tomatoes have been picked, they then must be graded. Grading means looking for any imperfections such as bruising, gravel hold, or spotting on the produce. Tomatoes are separated by the ones that meet the grade to go to Food Lion or Earth Fare and the ones that are not. The ones that don't meet up to standards are sold at the local farmers market. Continuing on with the steps however, the next is boxing. Boxes must be made and label to be shipped and tomatoes must be placed in at the approximate weight the store requires. Tomatoes must be put into the boxes and weigh in at around 11 pounds. The kinds of tomatoes shipped to the two listed locations are: Cherokee Purple, Brandywine, and German Striped Yellows. The boxes will contain a mixture of these types to be shipped to the store. Once the shipment arrives at the store, the payment does not come for 30 days. This is why the job can be a little difficult at times because of the gap between pay, but with the work at the local farmers market, the gap is filled. This is just a little insight to some of the steps that must be taken in the business each day.