We had the opportunity to visit Clear Springs Packing Plant in Winter Haven, Florida. This packing house serves small farmers in this region of Florida. Clear Springs has contracts with Walmart, Publix, Whole Foods and several other major markets.
Clear Springs is focused on helping preserve small farms for the future and enable them to serve the public with their premium fruit. The day we visited was during the blueberry season. Each farm is responsible for bringing their fruit to the loading dock in specific bins to be processed and packaged.
The fruit is stored in a large cooler warehouse that is about 20 degrees. There is a separate cooler room for organic fruit.
The computer system is configured for each farm. The fruit is sifted, sorted and scored to keep track of the quality coming from each farm. Each bin of blueberries was put into a shaker that shook out leaves, sticks and any debris that came in the bin.
Next, the berries went down a conveyor belt and hand sorted. The workers picked out any green or blemished berries. Then the berries went through another sorting. All berries that were not grade A quality were picked off by hand and put into another container.
Blueberries that do not meet the grade A quality standards are packaged in large boxes to be sold to other companies who use it for jam, juice and other uses.
The grade A blueberries come down a chute and are weighed and dropped into the clamshell packaging. Each package is re-weighed and the labels are scanned. It was fascinating to learn how technical it is for one package to end up on the grocery store shelves. Each package of fruit you purchase can be traced back to the farm it came from down to the day it came into the plant. Pretty cool.
I counted at least twenty people who handled the bins from delivery to packaging. That is a lot of people to work on the little package you have in your refrigerator.
Clear Springs sells to grocery stores all over the world.
Once all the fruit from one farm has been processed, all the machinery is cleaned and disinfected before the next batch is brought in.
The manager of the facility gave us the tour and was pleased to share their philosophy with us and the hope for the future of Florida farming. The farming industry for small-scale farms has dwindled by fifty percent due to mass production farms. Generational farming is on the decline as well.
Once we understood the importance of small farms we were excited about places like Clear Springs who is dedicated to helping them succeed. Farming is not an easy profession however it can be very rewarding as we found out on our next stop.
The Clear Springs manager shared a few tips for buying produce at your local grocery store.
- Choose brands that provide fruit grown in the US.
- Some countries do not have to adhere to growing and pesticide standards.
- Choose brands that you have heard of and not off brands that are hard to figure out where the fruit originated from.
Learning where your food comes from and how it is processed is one more step in bringing healthy food to your family. I had no idea so many people work on one product and how food goes from farm to table. Our day at Clear Springs was wonderful and we all have a new appreciation for small farmers and local food.