Ins And Outs of An Avocado
How much do we know about where our food comes from? Who is involved? The extensive process that unfolds from beginning to end? It's a bit overwhelming to breakdown the process of the production of avocados. The green, delicious, nutritious fruit that most love and will even spend an extra $1 to add onto their $4 sandwich. To better educate myself on the reality of farming avocados, I spent the day at a fifteen acre avocado ranch in Camarillo, Ca and afterwards trailed to the Mission Avocado packing house, where the process of putting this fruit on the market begins. |
March | 2014
P R O F I L E
Bolish Avocado Ranch located in Camarilo, Ca is owned by David Bolish and managed by Guillermo Venegas. David is a full time bio tech engineer, working in the pharmaceutical industry,as operation leads for a product. He is responsible for global manufacturing, testing, distribution, and the supply of product for patients around the world.
Growing up around orchards and the desire to provide food for people, David decided to dive into the agriculture industry. Fortunately for him, his passion to help others and Guillermo's knowledge of avocados enabled the two join forces. Guillermo has been in the farming industry for 35 years and is now managing 800 acres in Santa Barbara, Filmore, Moorpark, and Camarilo. Guillermo and his son own Venegas Farming, Together they manage picking crews, harvest, fertilize, and nurture for every tree on each ranch.
R A N C H T A L K
Avocado trees have the life span of 40 - 50 years. Like most ranches, they rent bees…YES, RENT BEES. Bees are used to pollenate the flowers on trees every season, April - July, afterwards they will go on the next crop that needs pollenating. These trees will go through stages of watering, fertilizing, and be sprayed with pesticides until they are finally picked for the market. I'd like to say that Avocados are an investment, unlike most fruit, avocados don't ripen on the tree, they mature. The rancher can decide to pick them according to the market price, and demand. Once they make that decision to be picked they contact Chris, the manager at Mission Avocado packing house, Chris will send out a picking crew of about 7-8 people, 5-6 days a week from 6 am - 4p m or until its too hot.
P R O F I L E
Bolish Avocado Ranch located in Camarilo, Ca is owned by David Bolish and managed by Guillermo Venegas. David is a full time bio tech engineer, working in the pharmaceutical industry,as operation leads for a product. He is responsible for global manufacturing, testing, distribution, and the supply of product for patients around the world.
Growing up around orchards and the desire to provide food for people, David decided to dive into the agriculture industry. Fortunately for him, his passion to help others and Guillermo's knowledge of avocados enabled the two join forces. Guillermo has been in the farming industry for 35 years and is now managing 800 acres in Santa Barbara, Filmore, Moorpark, and Camarilo. Guillermo and his son own Venegas Farming, Together they manage picking crews, harvest, fertilize, and nurture for every tree on each ranch.
R A N C H T A L K
Avocado trees have the life span of 40 - 50 years. Like most ranches, they rent bees…YES, RENT BEES. Bees are used to pollenate the flowers on trees every season, April - July, afterwards they will go on the next crop that needs pollenating. These trees will go through stages of watering, fertilizing, and be sprayed with pesticides until they are finally picked for the market. I'd like to say that Avocados are an investment, unlike most fruit, avocados don't ripen on the tree, they mature. The rancher can decide to pick them according to the market price, and demand. Once they make that decision to be picked they contact Chris, the manager at Mission Avocado packing house, Chris will send out a picking crew of about 7-8 people, 5-6 days a week from 6 am - 4p m or until its too hot.
Ripening Program ::: Big heating areas, where fruit is put in for four days at 70 degrees. Adding ethylene gas to ripen the fruit to different stages, revloutionizing the industry and increasing sales
P A C K I N G H O U S E
There is a science into the production and packing of avocados, one can imagine the heavy machinery, stages, the amount of hands, and forms of transportation they go through to get to retailers such as, in this case, Ralphs, Costco, Trader Joes, Walmart, Food services (ie: Chipotle) and overseas to countries such as Japan and South Korea. Chris Dryden, field representative of Ventura County for Mission Avocados, has worked in the industry for 22 years. The amount of knowledge he engulfed me in was enlightening. Once the avocados travel from ranches between San Luis Obispo to San Diego, to the packing house, they are placed into bins and coded by where they came from and when. From here they go through the following stages hydro-cooling > wash > wax > brush > sort > weigh > sticker > pack "The key is to manipulate the fruit, bring it hot from the field, cool it down, and sort it. Either goes out green and hard or ripen it...or slow it down again and get it to its final destination," ( Dryden). Depending on where it's going will determine this as well as the packing of the fruit. Everybody wants their own, box, size, film, color, and recognition. Not all fruit makes it to the distribution center, those that are cosmetically damaged will be sorted out. The state comes by and determines whether or not they can be sold as food for pigs, if punctured or pierced, it must be thrown away with the risk of rabies. |
Aside from Bolish, Venegas, and Dryden, there are many other lives that are involved in the extensive process of the production of avocados. The amount of jobs and lives that are affected by this fruit alone is insanely inspiring and an eye opening towards the agricultural industry.
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