As California growers harvest this season’s processing tomato crop, there is concern that canneries could struggle to keep up with a backlog of fruit deliveries. Bruce Rominger, board chairman for the California Tomato Growers Association, said growers are worried about risks to fruit that can’t be processed right away. “A cannery might say, ‘I’m going to contract with growers to bring me 200 loads per day. Well, now, all of a sudden, there are 400 loads that need to be harvested. So the concern is we’re all jammed up, and some tomatoes sit in the field too long and get rotten.”
To adjust for a bottleneck of trucks arriving at canners, which run 24-hour days during harvest, Rominger said some growers may be encouraged to harvest early when tomatoes are a little green. Under contracts with processors, Rominger explained, growers usually agree to deliver a certain tonnage during specific weeks to keep a consistent flow of tomatoes moving into canneries.
Source: cerescourier.com