George N. Herbert Packing Company

Summary

Business	Dried Fruit Packer,Cannery
Main Location	San Jose
Active	1890-1920's
Brands	Herbert's Extra, Buymore
Successors	California Prune and Apricot Growers.

George N. Herbert Packing Company, early 1890's.

‘’’George N. Herbert Packing Company’’’ was a dried fruit packer in San Jose from the early 1890’s through 1918. The principal for the company was George N. Herbert, a veteran San Jose fruit man. Herbert was the son of a California immigrant; his brother, J.H. Herbert was also in the fruit industry. Herbert sold his packing house to the California Prune and Apricot Growers in 1918. Within a year, Herbert started the ‘’’Herbert Packing Company’’ cannery, purchasing the Smith-Frank Canning Company. Herbert Packing disappeared by the late 1920's.

Dried Fruit Packing House on Lincoln Ave.

George N. Herbert Packing Company started in a small packing house on Meridian Road in San Jose in 1890. In 1898, Herbert built a one-story packing house at Lincoln and Moorpark Avenues. That packing house burned on June 30, 1901 - losing 450 tons of prunes, and buildings covering an acre. The fire also set the adjacent narrow gauge tracks on fire. 250 tons were owned by the California Cured Fruit Association, rest belonged to Herbert except for 20 tons owned by Seglemen Brothers of New York, awaiting shipping instructions." The fire completely destroyed the "immense dryer and packing house on Lincoln Ave."; the immense piles of prunes glowed like a volcano”. Herbert rebuilt his plant in 40 days as a three-story packing house in the middle of the Lincoln block. The plant was expanded in 1915, resulting in a building 166 feet long, 82 feet wide, and three stories high with concrete vaults for steaming fruit and sorting machinery on the second floor.

Herbert did contract packing for the California Prune and Apricot Growers in 1917 in the organization’s first year. Herbert supposedly a million pounds of the crop without informing the association and holding on to the $100,000 in payment, leading to a lawsuit, a demand for a $320,000 bond, and a louder demand for the immediate return of 1.9 million pounds of prunes and 178,000 pounds of apricots which belonged to Sunsweet. "...Mr Herbert gave copies of the shipping sheets to the inspectors, so as to permit the fruit to be checked out of the packing plant, but sent only a few selected sheets thereof to the sales department so that the officers of the corporation would be unable to find out that he was liable to the corporation for the purchase of the fruit.". Sunsweet grabbed the twenty-two carloads of packed fruit and 200 tons of prunes the next week. Because of the trouble with Herbert and similar issues with other packers, Sunsweet changed their operating style from contracting with packing houses to leasing or purchasing them outright. Sunsweet purchased the Herbert packing house in June 1918. The building became Sunsweet’s Plant #6.

Herbert also began buying land. "George N. Herbert has purchased 110 acres of the Thomas Fisher estate, a short distance south of Coyote, for between $70,000 and $75,000. Mr. Herbert stated that he purchased the property owing to the great richness of the soil, which he considers the best prune land in the valley. His 25 years' experience in the packing business has taught him that the largest and highest quality prunes are raised in the territory running from Edenvale to several miles south of Coyote. He stated also that the biggest production of prunes comes from this section.”. Herbert sold the land in 1920 Douglas Sim for $150,000. The land included 100 acres of prunes and ten acres of apricots. Headline showed it as largest sale of the year.

Herbert Packing Company: Cannery at Third and Keyes

In April 1919, Herbert returned to business with the purchase of the Smith-Frank Canning Company at Third and Keyes in San Jose. Frank, like Herbert, turned his packing house over to Sunsweet, and built a cannery for a second try at the fruit industry, but decided after a year to relocate to Sacramento. Herbert inherited a cannery that occupied an entire city block; he also planned to restart a dried fruit business. Directors for the new company included George N. Herbert, S. G. Tompkins, J. Q. Patton, B. H. Barthold of San Francisco (who was also superintendent), and D. W. Johnson of San Francisco. Western Canner and Packer noted that they expected to can 130,000 cases of fruit in 1919, mostly apricots, peaches, pears, and cherries with a staff of 500. Edith Daley’s visit to the plant in July 1919 highlighted Superintendent Barthold’s pride at the “six-line” plant, with 40,000 square feet of warehouse space, 300 feet of spur track, and available land surrounding for future expansion. Edith Daley visits George Herbert Packing Company.

Ads for the new company billed it as "Herbert Packing Company, successors to George N. Herbert”, offering canned fruits and vegetables as well as dried fruit.

In 1922, Van Camp Packing considered entering the California market and considered buying the Herbert cannery. In early April, Van Camp decided against the move, and Herbert announced that he intended to stay independent, with both the dried and canned business expanding. Harold A. Herbert would be in charge of production; H. J. Denhart would be in charge of sales, and John A. Kluge would head the export department. The same article notes Herbert Packing’s purchase of the Reedley Canning Company, purchased from Anderson Barngrover who received it through bankruptcy.

In 1923, Herbert contracted to can for the California Canning Peach Growers' Association in 1923 at his canneries at Reedley and San Jose. Each cannery was expected to process 160 to 200 tons of peaches a day to cover the association’s 10,000 tons of fruit; the value of the contract was expected to be $1,000,000. Herbert would advance the canning cost and handle selling. The growers had previously used the California Packing Corporation, but switched to Herbert and two smaller canners after a dispute over prices.

Herbert Packing disappeared from news reports by the mid 1920's. The company disappeared from city directories in 1927, and their Third and Keyes cannery was used by Pacific Coast Canners starting in 1928.

Herbert’s cannery still exists on the southeast corner of Third and Keyes.

Locations

Location	Years	Address	Details
Coyote	1916-1920		Former Thomas Fisher estate orchards.
Reedley	1920-		cannery for apricots, cling, and freestone peaches.
Reedley	1922
San Jose	1896-1902	Lincoln Avenue corner of Moorpark	Dried Fruit packing house, San Francisco Call 1900 list of dropoff locations for California Cured Fruit Association.
San Jose	1902-1918	Lincoln Avenue near Sansevain
San Jose	1919-	Third and Keyes (1919)	Still exists.
San Jose	1919	Monterey Highway	Dried fruit plant.