Part 12

SKILLFUL SELLING CROWNS THE ENTERPRISE

The most skillful production is in vain if marketing is not done well. At the same time, the quality of the goods is the principal factor in making the price and in moving the goods. Even then, if costs in production and marketing are too high, the enterprise is a failure.

The differences between high and low quotations on the same market the same day, are usually fairly wide,--say, $1.75 to $2.50; or $0.75 to $1.25; or $0.20 to $0.25 per basket. These differences are sufficient to make the difference between profit and loss. Small differences in quality of the product, in handling and dress-up of the market pack and skill in finding buyers may easily result in price differences as great or greater than those indicated.

Harvesting

Picking in the field calls for the closest care and supervision to prevent damage to the fruits and vines. Stems should be removed to avoid punching other fruits, and long finger-nails do great harm by cutting the skin and admitting infection. Containers should not be too large to be handled conveniently. Round half-bushel stave baskets and galvanized pails are excellent. Baskets made of quarter-inch staves rather than veneer are smooth and durable, but the investment is rather heavy unless dumping is resorted to. In practice, all sorts of boxes and crates are used, often the package that is used for marketing. No container as deep as a bushel basket should be used.

The stage of ripeness at which tomatoes are picked depends upon the time and distance to market. For home use or local market, fruit may range from the first turn to almost fully colored.

A few growers pick at the turn and use ripening rooms to prepare for local selling. In this way cracking, injury by soil, by insects, and by uneven coloring are avoided. Fruits are wiped and handled with less loss and may even be washed if need be.

Fully ripened fruit will not stand handling and hauling and will quickly deteriorate, reaching the consumer in bad condition.

For cannery, full ripening is desired with even coloring. MacGillivray has shown that success in this is largely a matter of care in picking. Cracking and slight softening are not serious defects for this purpose, but molds and bacteria in broken places are serious as they throw the product out of grade or occasion rejection.

Picking Green

Most tomatoes for long distance shipment, are picked before color appears,--at the mature-green stage. One of the great difficulties is to judge this stage correctly; to train ordinary labor to pick by maturity and not by size. Immature-green tomatoes ripen slowly and do not achieve good appearance or table quality.

It is almost impossible to describe the ear marks of a mature-green tomato. Most of those usually cited are of doubtful value--glossy surface, whitish cast of color and the dark ring at the stem scar. The jelly-like or mucilaginous material in the seed cells has sufficiently developed in a mature green tomato so that the fruit may be sliced without cutting seeds. Of course, the tomato is ruined but the method can be used to check one's judgment based on the exterior. Also, one can learn by laying aside tomatoes judged mature-green and immature-green to ripen.

Some efforts have recently been made in Florida to pick tomatoes at the turn, that is, at the first show of color, a practice suggested by Sando some years ago. This should provide fruits of uniform degree of maturity, that would be about ready to sell on arrival and it would eliminate the serious problem of immature-greens. It would require more frequent picking of fields and there could be no delay in packing. There would, doubtless, also be problems of temperature and ventilation in transit. Results of tests thus far have been rather encouraging.

Ripening

Green wrap tomatoes are received at terminal markets by produce houses that have special ripening rooms where temperature is kept at about 70 deg., with high humidity to prevent wilting or shriveling. Ethylene gas is used by some to hasten ripening. It does not change the nature of the process, merely speeding it up. Some of these repackers have elaborate equipment for sorting and packing.

The tomatoes, on arrival, are shaken out of their paper wraps. Any that have ripened in transit are taken out and packed while the greens go into the ripening rooms. They may have to be sorted over two or three times as ripening progresses.

The ripening process in tomatoes has been rather thoroughly studied. Sando found that tomatoes ripen uniformly, regardless of size, at a certain age, dating from the setting of the fruit. This time, which, of course, varies according to weather conditions, was eight weeks when the studies were made. Ripening is accompanied by an increase in moisture, acids and sugars, with decrease of solids, nitrogen, starch, pentisans, crude fibre and ash. Sugars increase from about a quarter to about half of the dry weight. Chemical analysis did not show differences sufficient to account for the difference in quality between vine-ripened fruit and green fruit ripened in the laboratory. Lack of ventilation seems to be detrimental.

It is commonly held that tomatoes chilled without freezing will not ripen satisfactorily afterward. This belief is discounted by results of Wright and associates and of Platenius who found little effect of low temperatures upon later ripening.

Wright and Platenius have both found that tomatoes should not be stored at low temperatures, 50 deg. to 60 deg. F. being best. Storage is not likely to be satisfactory for more than a month.

Waxing

Waxing of tomatoes by immersion in a dilute water emulsion of paraffine and carnauba waxes is being tried out with very promising results. Waxes are also dissolved in volatile hydrocarbons and sprayed on. Moisture loss and shriveling are materially retarded, and interference with the ripening process is negligible. The wax coating is very thin, adds an attractive gloss and is entirely harmless.

Grading

It is generally true that at market the poorest products in a given lot tend to fix the price. When the buyer finds a few inferior specimens he assumes there are many more. Imperfect and diseased specimens infect others. Grading enhances the appearance of the pack.

FIGURE 20.--A California packing house with elaborate machinery and fully organized.]

Of course, the grower who picks marketable tomatoes and leaves unmarketable fruits on the vine is engaged in a form of grading--informal and subconscious. Methods may range from this simple practice to the elaborate schemes adopted in large packing houses. There is no difficulty in adopting methods for the farm that are easily managed and perfectly practical. In general, two grades to sell represent a good plan, leaving culls at home unless prices are high and there is good demand for them. The set-up may involve no more than a worker at a table with three baskets--one with tomatoes from the field; another for #1's and a third for #2's. The worker may well use a cotton flannel glove or cloth to wipe the tomatoes and the fruits should be placed in layers to bring the package to a good face. With some practice, this slows the operation but very little. Shed packing should be more common than it is though the practice seems to be gaining.

Shippers scattered from Cuba and California to New York state have packing houses set up to all degrees of elaborateness. Some have machines and conveyors that wash, sort for size, provide for hand sorting for grade and deliver to bins for packing. Experienced packers advance with the season from Florida to Lake Erie. These workers become almost incredibly expert and speedy. It is not uncommon for a worker to pick up, wrap and place in the lug box 60 or 70 tomatoes per minute--not as a show-off but in course of regular work.

The federal government has worked out and published standards for the grades of tomatoes along with most other vegetables. These standards are practical and have found wide acceptance as furnishing common language between seller and buyer, especially for long distance shipment. The one who grades may, however, set up a standard of his own to meet the needs of his conditions and market.

U.S. Standards for cannery tomatoes are widely used as a basis of payment to the grower and this practice is to be commended.