September, Vasey’s employees begin checking the ripeness of the fruit. If the prunes are harvested too early, they won’t have enough sugar. Too late, and the farm loses them to the ground. When the fruit is ready, a machine shakes them onto a frame on the ground, which then heads to a washer that removes leaves and sticks. They then go onto wooden trays, which are stacked and loaded into the dehydrator, all within one day of harvest. There, they spend about 18 hours losing two- thirds of their weight. The employees feel the prunes about every hour to make sure they don’t overdry. They put in a new set about every two hours, 24 hours a day. The whole harvest lasts about three weeks. The prunes’ next journey is to Sunsweet Growers in Yuba City, where they are stored until processing. Then they are steamed, rehydrating them to about 30% to make them soft enough to pit, packaged and shipped all over the world. A farmer and a fan One of the happy customers is Vasey himself. “We’ve got prunes in our cupboard all the time. I probably eat four or five a day,” he said.
A Lindauer River Ranch employee, above left, pushes a stack of trays full of plums into the dehydrator. After about 18 hours, the plums come out as prunes, above.
californiabountiful.com 9
Powered by FlippingBook