Have you ever wondered how produce ends up on the shelf of your supermarket? Have you questioned how “fresh” the produce section really is? Many people don’t stop to give it thought, much less realize all the effort it takes to get a single cucumber ready to sell. Southern Valley is a vertically integrated company, which means that we oversee the entire process from seed to shelf, and everything in between.
We grow ’em.
We start with the seed. Varieties are selected, bought, and stored in a cool place until they are ready to be seeded- put into small plastic containers with fertilizer and potting soil- and placed in the greenhouses for germination. Seedlings grow under careful supervision in our greenhouses until they are ready to be transplanted into the field. Here at Southern Valley everything is grown on plastic beds with drip irrigation, which means fertilizer and water can be supplied directly to the plant’s roots by means of an underground dripline. Southern Valley produce is pollinated by bees. Did you know a cucumber plant has to be pollinated seven times to grow a long, strait cucumber? I sure didn’t.
Seedling
We pick ‘em.
After nurturing the seedlings’ growth, they become fully-matured plants. Then, it is time for harvest. Southern Valley hires domestic and international workers to pick our produce when the time is right. Crews take to the rows, harvesting our fields daily throughout the season. All Southern Valley produce is handpicked, making sure that only the best make it to our packing shed.
Picking Zucchini
We pack’em.
After the produce is harvested, it is trucked from the field to our state of the art packing facility. It’s here that the magic happens, where truckloads of cucumbers straight from the field are waxed until they shine, packed in a box, and made ready for the supermarket. With separate lines for the washing, sorting, and packing of squash, cucumber, and pepper, there are always dozens of employees working in the packing facility at any given time. Corn first makes its way through the hydrocooler to remove any of the heat generated by its time spent in the field. This cooler runs chilled water over the ears and afterwards they are placed in a refrigerated storeroom. Other types of produce are packed differently. After they are washed, scrubbed, sanitized, and packed, a forced air cooler refrigerates the squash, eggplants, and cucumbers. This cooler creates a wind tunnel for chilled air to blow through the boxes of produce, refrigerating them more rapidly and efficiently than a conventional refrigerator.
Boxed produce
We ship ‘em.
After it has sufficiently cooled, the produce is then placed into a refrigerated storage facility before trucks arrive to take it to either the distribution center or directly to the grocery store. Once it reaches the middle distribution point, the produce is then transported to its final destination: your local supermarket shelf, restaurants, and farmer’s markets.
Southern Valley trucks
YOU eat ‘em.
Every part of this crucial process is done in-house at Southern Valley. This enables us to deliver the safest, freshest, and most delicious produce to your store, restaurant, or local farmer’s market. It means that we can guarantee that Southern Valley shelves are filled with only the highest-quality produce that has been under our care from our farm to your kitchen table.
So that’s how a cucumber gets from the field to your fork in just a few short days. The more you know!
Plated pickles.