Storage Expansion Comes Just in Time for Big Crop
A combination of a very short apple crop, then a very long crop, and a decrepit economy came together just right for Jack Brown Produce, the Michigan apple packing cooperative headed by president John Schaefer.
“We were going to build new storage in 2008,” he said, “but the Michigan apple crop was so short we decided to put it off. In doing so, we got a much better deal. The construction industry went into a slump, so it was a good time to build.”
That good expansion time was the summer of 2009, and a sense of urgency was added by the impending large Michigan apple crop. It nearly doubled from about 14 million bushels in the short year of 2008 to more than 26 million bushels last fall.
Even with the new $2 million, 17-room, 220,000-bushel controlled atmosphere storage, growers on the Ridge near Sparta, the home of Jack Brown Produce, left apples in the orchards. One grower said his yield hit 1,200 bushels per acre, nearly double his usual 700-bushel average.
The dismal market for apples for processing and juice led many growers to leave Golden Delicious, Rome and Ida Red apples in the orchard and go to storage with the best fresh-market varieties.
The new storage is of basic pole building construction. The 17 CA rooms are built of interlocking panels that are sandwiches of enamelized steel over 4 inches of foam. The building was designed and the panels, refrigeration and CA storage controls provided by Storage Control Systems in Sparta, Mich.
Jack Brown Produce packs about a million cartons of apples each year, handling 15 varieties. It operates a six-lane sorting and packing line that, Schaefer said, is the largest east of the Mississippi (but half the size of some of those in Washington state).
The sorter’s cameras take four photographs of each apple, determining its size, color and shape, and the sorter’s computer directs each apple to the proper drop location, where workers pack the apples. Some 365 configurations are possible.
Jack Brown Produce is “three companies in one,” according to Schaefer. JB Packing packages apples for about 100 growers, most of whom are owners of equity in the corporation. Every bin of apples is broken down and packed out to the best advantage of each grower, Schaefer said, and the growers get paid for the packed value of each bin. The company charges growers for that service.
JB Sales buys and sells apples, not only for its members but for others as well. Pat Chase runs the sales department.
JB Storage rents bins and CA storage space to growers and arranges for SmartFresh treatment. It charges growers for those services.
Jack Brown Produce traces its roots to 1927, when it was started by Jack and Alita Brown, who had a fruit farm on the Ridge and were selling to local grocers. Up until 1950, most growers were packing their own apples, Schaefer said, but the advent of chain stores and the need to provide volume led to change.
“Six families got together to build a central packing facility,” he said. “Growers did the production and storage, and the Browns did the packing and sales.”
After Jack Brown died, Alita ran the sales and packing operation. She was known across the country. She died in 1991, three years after the decision was made to begin a transfer of management.
John Schaefer, whose family was one of the six founders and has been growing apples on the Ridge since 1858, became the president, a position he still holds.