Old pickles
http://articles.chicagotribune.com/1995-05-22/business/9505220127_1_pickle-packers-international-three-pickles-dean-pickle
FARMINGTON HILLS, Mich.- The pickle-that longtime butt of jokes and companion to roast-beef sandwiches-might be said to make its home in Michigan.
The state not only is America's top pickle grower but is more dominant in pickle packing than in automaking. Michigan factories build only about one U.S. motor vehicle in four, but they pack about one of every three pickles, providing work for hundreds of people the year around.
The industry, which supplies a $1.45 billion-a-year national market, is big enough to take seriously. But people rarely do.
"There are a million pickle jokes, and pickles aren't the most respected commodity around," says Michigan State University horticulture professor Irvin Widders. "It's not an essential food in our diet-you either like 'em or you hate 'em. And so the industry is very serious about itself, on the one hand, but they like to laugh at themselves, too."
Here are some of the companies and people who take pickles most seriously:
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Heinz USA of Pittsburgh, which operates a half-million-square-foot plant in Holland, Mich., billed as "the world's largest pickle factory." The plant, which will celebrate its 100th birthday next year, employs 260 people year-round and another 370 during the May-November harvest season.
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Dean Pickle & Specialty Products Co. of Green Bay, Wis., which has Michigan plants in Croswell and Eaton Rapids that employ about 200 people year-round and up to 500 at the peak of the Michigan harvest.
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Vlasic Foods Inc., a subsidiary of Campbell Soup Co. that has plants in Imlay City and Bridgeport, Mich., a grading facility in Saginaw, Mich. and sales offices in Farmington Hills, Mich. Vlasic, the nation's best-selling national brand, employs about 450 year-round in Michigan and 800 more during the harvest season.
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Michigan farmers, who planted 24,500 acres of cucumber pickles last year, for which they received $21.6 million. The state was No. 1 in acres planted, ahead of North Carolina and Wisconsin.
Pickle Packers International, a trade association based in St. Charles, Ill., lists 11 Michigan companies among its members, including eight manufacturers and three salters, which typically are growers who process pickles in brine for later sale to processors. Pickles usually are slowly fermented in brine or fresh-packed directly from harvest.
"Children are the best customers," says association Vice President Richard Hentshel. "They really like pickles but can't always influence their parents to buy them."
U.S. consumption of pickles, once 4 pounds annually per capita, grew to about 8 pounds over several decades but remained flat in recent years before being sharply revived by Vlasic's new Sandwich Stackers, he says.
The new pickle slices, cut horizontally for easier use in sandwiches, helped to boost year-to-year industry sales by about 7 percent in recent months, and the idea is expected to be widely adopted by other brands.
John Swanson, 36, together with his father and two brothers, operates one of the state's biggest pickle farms in Ravenna, Mich.
"We've talked about putting pickles on a stick at the ballpark," he says of the industry's promotional efforts. "We don't want to be known as just a condiment. We want to be a main part of the meal. We want pickles for breakfast."