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| McClure Farms and West Coast Tomato: You Say Tomato |
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| By Alan Dorich | |||
| Tuesday, 26 February 2008 | |||
Vice President and co-owner D.C. McClure says his great-, great-grandfather, John McClure, founded the company in the early 1900s. Today, operating under the names McClure Farms and West Coast Tomato, it has growing regions in south and central Florida and south Georgia that cover approximately 3,000 acres. “We probably package about 4 million [tomatoes annually],” D.C. McClure says, adding that 25 percent of the company’s products are Roma tomatoes, while the rest are of the beefsteak variety. The company has improved its operations with new technologies, McClure says. Four years ago, “We were the first guinea pigs to try out a new technology ... to detect defects in the fruit and sort them out with the aid of a photoelectric eye, and with [a] camera and computer, rather than strictly hand labor,” he explains. The system, created by MAF Technology, had been used with citrus fruits and apples, but McClure Farms was the first to use it with tomatoes. Although the company was proud to be the first to use the technology, “There was a lot of frustration with getting [the] new technology to work,” he admits. “Tomatoes are difficult to work with,” he says. “The subtleties of the defects [in tomatoes] are an enormous challenge for that technology to discern, and it’s still a work in progress.” However, the company already benefits from the technology. “It does successfully size and color-sort tomatoes, which is something we had not been doing before,” McClure explains. “It’s improved the efficiency, and the equipment handles the fragile fruit better than the older equipment.” McClure explains that the new system causes less bruising in its products. Additionally, “[It] does probably the most important thing – it does a better job in providing what the customer wants: a very specific size tomato,” he says. “There’s no better way to do that than with this kind of equipment.” If its clients want tomatoes at an exact dimension for their cutting equipment, McClure Farms can do that, he says. “We can provide very specific specifications that you can’t provide with your traditional equipment,” he declares. McClure notes that this technology reflects a change in his industry, which was not always known as being technologically advanced. Now, “There’s always little bits and pieces of new technology coming out everywhere,” he says. Following Regulations “The government is coming forward with more and more requirements to ensure that food safety is occurring,” McClure notes. “As these [new] layers of rules and regulations come down from [above], they require more effort and infrastructure on our part.” To meet these requirements, the company has developed new departments, hired more workers and improved its oversight of sanitation in the field. “[We’re] making sure things are actually being done about it, not just [paying] lip service,” he says. “[We’re] making sure people are actually washing their hands before they touch the fruit.” Another challenge for the company involves its workers. McClure says his company might see an employee shortfall because of regulations regarding immigration. However, “We’re hoping that the government helps streamline some guest worker programs that we can actually utilize,” he says. “They have some programs out there, but they have some hiccups in them that make them not always so user-friendly.” Completing the Journey McClure has been with his family’s company for 30 years. “Staying family owned allows us to make decisions quicker than a larger corporation that has to go through a lot of layers of administration,” he explains. In addition to McClure himself, the family members of McClure Farms’ management include his mother, President Connie McClure, and his brother-in-law, Head of Sales and Packing Operations Bob Spencer, who also is an attorney. The family environment has nurtured employee longevity, D.C. McClure says. “We’ve had employees that have been here 20 or 30 years,” he says. “Everybody working here for a long time [has created] great teamwork. “I think there’s other family members underneath us that are going to be interested in continuing the business,” he continues. “I think we’re doing a good enough job that we’ll compete successfully in the future. Even with extra challenges and governmental problems, we’ll complete the journey. “Overall, it’s not rocket science what we do,” he states. “It’s a business that requires simply a lot of dedicated people that are willing [to] work hard, long hours, sometimes seven days a week. We’re fortunate that we have people like that that are dedicated enough to what they do.” |
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