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Grower Cooperative Buys Former Del Monte Plant in Woodland, Calif., Area
Source: The Sacramento Bee
Publication date: 2001-08-18
Aug. 18--WOODLAND, Calif.--It's mid-August and the lineup of trucks brimming with double-loads of tomatoes is nowhere to be seen along
Cannery Lane.
The parking lot the length of a football field is empty, not a seasonal worker in sight. Absent are all the sounds and smells of a food
processing plant operating at full throttle 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
For the first time since its opening 58 years ago, the cannery along Main Street sits idle. Its last owner, Del Monte Foods, closed the plant
last January and laid off the work force of nearly 300.
This would all be bad news for Yolo County's seat of government and the surrounding farm community but for the fact that the plant closure
will be short-lived.
Pacific Coast Producers, a well-established grower cooperative, just bought the plant from Del Monte and plans to expand its capacity and
payrolls, introduce state-of-the-art equipment and have it up and running for the 2002 tomato season.
The announcement of the purchase earlier this month brought a collective sigh of relief from political and business leaders worried
about the loss of jobs and tax revenue.
Of even greater concern was that the sprawling industrial site, just off I-5 and right at the Main Street gateway to Woodland's downtown
business district, would turn into an eyesore.
"The worse thing that can happen was to have 40 acres vacant and deteriorating and becoming a blighted area," said Woodland City Manager
Richard Kirkwood.
And with the agricultural economy seemingly on the wane, prospects weren't bright to attract another food processor. Del Monte's shuttering
of the plant last January came about the same time the historic Spreckels sugar refinery ended operations on the outskirts of Woodland. Last
year the giant Tri Valley Growers co-op collapsed financially, and its tomato plants in Thornton, Stockton and Los Banos were closed.
The Hunt-Wesson cannery in Davis, 10 miles from Woodland, shut down a year earlier. All those facilities remain shuttered. So in such an
environment, Woodland public officials and business leaders in recent months began thinking about something other than a food processing
plant for the Del Monte property.
City government went so far as to apply for a grant from a Modesto nonprofit organization to assist in developing a reuse plan for the site. In
April, the city was notified by the group, the Great Valley Center, that it had been awarded a $50,000 grant to help with the effort.
Meanwhile, a local group that recruits new businesses to Woodland received informal inquiries about the land from an out-of-state shopping
mall developer and from parties possibly interested in taking over the plant to convert rice straw to paper or turn corn into ethanol.
"The mall would have been more palatable because of the sales tax it would have generated," said Bryce Birkman, executive director of the
nonprofit Woodland Economic Renaissance Corp.
The inquiries were preliminary and never got very far, Birkman said, because PCP suddenly emerged as a serious candidate to buy the
factory.
While Woodland's business and political leaders have been pursuing a strategy of economic diversification, they say they are delighted to see
a key agricultural industry retained.
"Diversification of industry makes a dynamic and healthy community," said Woodland's mayor, Steve Borchard. "But everybody knows for the
city of Woodland and Yolo County, agriculture is our biggest industry."
Borchard once farmed but quit a few years ago to manage a vineyard in Napa Valley. But his brother, Jim, grows tomatoes and couldn't be
happier about PCP buying the Del Monte plant and shifting its tomato canning operations there from Lodi.
Jim Borchard is among 24 tomato growers who are members of that cooperative.
Most have acreage within 10 miles of Woodland but for years they have delivered the crop to Lodi 50 miles away.
"It will save fuel, and the quality of the tomatoes will be better," said Borchard, explaining that the fruit won't be "bouncing on the road for an
hour making ketchup."
PCP officials estimate that the co-op will save an estimated $3.5 million in transportation costs alone -- all of which will show up in higher
year-end income to the growers like Borchard who own the co-op.
The co-op announced it will spend more than $17 million to upgrade the plant, which will be able to process 525,000 tons a season compared
to 380,000 tons at its cannery in Lodi.
"Our business was getting bigger, and we couldn't produce all we needed in Lodi," said Rich Freitas, new plant manager in Woodland.
PCP ruled out building a larger plant as being cost prohibitive, said Dan Vincent, the co-op's chief operating officer.
Then the Woodland plant became available, and PCP jumped at the opportunity.
When the renovated factory reopens it will have a year-round work force of 80 to 100 and probably more than 600 seasonal employees who
will likely work the peak three months annually, according to Rick Fenaroli, manager for the rebuilding project.
The employee roll will be more than twice that of Del Monte's in its final year of operation. Aside from management, Pacific Coast's work force
will be unionized and can expect to earn between $8.50 and $19.50 an hour. Work crews have already moved in to the factory, tearing down
Del Monte machinery used to peel the tomatoes to make way for state of the art equipment.
Pacific Coast plans to redesign the factory to focus almost entirely on canning whole and diced tomatoes as well as tomato and spaghetti
sauce and tomato juice. Del Monte mainly produced tomato paste. The co-op's sole business is supplying canned goods for grocery chains
that put their own labels on the products. Among its major customers are Albertson's, Kroger, Safeway/Vons, Wal-Mart and Fleming.
With the Woodland factory's future secure, one piece of business remains for city government -- a matter of getting back with Great Valley
Center, that nonprofit group in Modesto that awarded the $50,000 grant to help develop a reuse plan for the property.
"It looks as if we do not need that money for this project," City Manager Richard Kirkwood said happily.
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To see more of The Sacramento Bee, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.sacbee.com
(c) 2001, The Sacramento Bee, Calif. Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News. DLM, ABS, KR, SWY, WMT, FLM,
Publication date: 2001-08-18
Last Revised: August 27, 2001
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