FINLEY >> The pear packing process is a huge logistical miracle and the crew are meticulous in their work, but once inside the packing shed employees know they are team.
“Getting our Lake County crop from the tree to the market to the consumer, you can see our employees all have their part, taking pride in their work; they put out a good safe product and all in a small window of time, says co-founder Toni Scully of Scully Packing Company LLC. Scully, now retired yet still active in the business, along with her husband Phil who started the business 40 years ago, who now works in sales. They acquired the orchard and shed from Bob Harrell who was approaching retirement in the mid-1980s. The growing is winding down, but the sales season continues until the end of November noted Toni. Her younger son Andy runs the shed and the orchard, while elder son Patrick is the General Manager, and oversees everything: the growers, canners, the day-to-day business. Daughter Hanna is also immersed in the family business and will turn her full attention to it when she graduates Chico State.
“At our peak, we get coming in the equivalent of 25 truck trailer loads each day (same as the other shed in Scott’s Valley) and that is the equivalent of 1,250,000 pounds of pears each day” Scully said. While the shed operations begin to wind down Scully Packing will be working on Bartletts Wednesday (September 4) but then they will move to packing Red Pears, Bosc and Seckel. The latter is a chubby, round body, small neck, and short stem fruit. Their skin is usually olive green, but frequently exhibits a dark maroon blush, that is especially popular on the east coast around Thanksgiving. They ship all over the U. S., go to Canada, Mexico, and to a smaller extent, Central America. “So, about 20 % of our crop is exported to other countries,” she said. The Lake County Pear is recognized across the spectrum as the premium Bartlett Pear. It has a beautiful longitudinal shape. It has a longer neck than other Bartletts and its high sugar content gives it a longer shelf life and it is great tasting.”
Pears are also produced in Mendocino and the Sacramento River area. The river fruit are not as elongated as the Mountain Pears and do not have the high sugar content or long shelf life. ” Toni said. “But they’re a good pear, we pack and ship them fairly fast at the start of the season, beginning of July.”
Scully has to ship the pears when they are still green. A pear is an atypical fruit that does not ripen properly when it is still on the tree. If a person pulls off a pear from the tree that is yellow, it will be grainy and tasteless. Pears really develop its full flavor and texture potential when they have their nap of cold storage, known as the pre-cool kept in refrigerated vaults kept at about 31 degrees. They can keep until the end of November like that, but typically do not wait that long. “If they are shipped when yellow they get easily bruised,” said Toni. “You take them and put them into a brown paper bag with banana and an apple of something that gives off Ethelyne gas, a natural hormone ripening agent and develops their pear potential. They move much faster if the grocery stores keep them until they just start breaking yellow and then they fly off the shelf.”
Scully employs 225 people at each shed, the one in Finley and the one in Scotts Valley for a total of 450 to 500 workers. The shed workers return every season. Some work for 20 years and even a few work over 30 years. The pickers are another story, hired through local labor contractors who locate workers from different parts of California and the crews are housed locally.
One local girl, working since spring just graduated from Kelseyville High School, Sienna Key who works as a Pack Out Supervisor. She extracts cannery samples and separates the small pears, less than two and 1/2 – inch diameter and the large specimens greater than that. “Toni came to our high school and talked up the job,” Sienna recalled. “But I am leaving next week to go to U.C. San Diego to major in Clinical Psychology. I’ll focus on children’s mental disorders. But this experience has been good training for computer skills I learned and supervisorial training I received here.”
Toni noted the shed has computers automating the conveyor rollers moving the product along the line for a washing, then separated by size as well as stickered according to size and grade all under the control of programed computers, yet hand wrapped to a specific pattern and placed into tray packs, bags of differentiated weights, 40-pound boxes or even Continue Boxes, deluxe gift sets sold at a Sam’s Club or Costco. Scully’s employees are not only trained in work safety, but food safety and they have a right to be treated appropriately by management. “We got them grounded in the business area of their life,” Toni said. “So, they can go into any job, whether they are a clerk in a store, a doctor, lawyer, a cosmetician, or whatever, because we train them.”
