A big operation
Packing plant keeps the focus on quality
By Larry Meyer
Argus Observer
Thursday, December 18, 2008 10:49 AM PST
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| Members of the Idaho State Horticulture Society tour group overlook the packing operations at the Henggeler Packing Co., near Fruitland Tuesday. |
FRUITLAND — The Henggeler Packing Co. has modernized to remain competitive and stay in business as market pressures, domestically and internationally, continue to be a challenge to the Idaho fruit industry, particularly apples.
Those accomplishments proved to be a key theme during a Tuesday afternoon tour of the Henggeler facility in Payette County for the Idaho State Horticulture Society and local dignitaries.
Besides its own apples, Henggeler packs for 25 different growers, Kelly Henggeler, one of the third generation of owners of the firm, said.
“We are the largest commercial packing facility in the state,” he said. “We do some exporting. We ship coast to coast.”
There has been a great deal of change in the industry, Henggeler said. Fuji apples and galas are in the most demand now, but red delicious and golden delicious were the most popular apples 10 to 15 years ago.
The packer, a member of the Tree Top cooperative, sends a lot apples that don’t make the grade for fresh sale for juice and applesauce, but there is a heavy competition from China, which has been sending over a lot of concentrate. Prices have been cut by about half, Henggeler said.
Prices on fresh apples started very strong at the first of the season, but then Washington, which is the largest producer of apples in the nation, came in with a bumper crop, 113 million boxes, compared with the 99 million that had been expected.
There are 70 people working at the facility now, and the facility is automated as much as possible.
“We can color sort and sort by size,” Henggeler said. But, there is no machine that will sort by defects so that still requires people.
“We still pick apples by hand, pruning and thinning.”
Henggeler said he hopes there can be some immigration reform and guest worker program worked out so there will be a steady supply of labor. While there was an adequate supply of labor this year, it was a struggle to find workers last year, he said. Henggeler Packing markets to Red Apple, Albertsons and Paul’s, but the company has more apples than the Idaho can use. “We ship the majority of our apples to the L.A. basin,” Henggeler said.
