Processing Prunes

Depending on the era, processing dried fruit followed different processes.

1893: West Side Fruit Growers Association

Each season, the member farmers would decide whether they intended to sell their crop to the association, and indicated in advance whether they wanted the association to dry the fruit or if they would do it themselves. They would provide a signed agreement with an estimated tonnage. The agreement allowed the farmer to demand payment of 75% of the likely purchase price at the time the fruit was delivered, but in reality most farmers waited until the crop was sold.

Green fruit would be brought in by wagon and weighed on a wagon scale, then dumped into a hopper. An elevator would list the fruit to the second floor of the packing house where fruit would be sorted by a grader into four sizes, and dumped in one ton bins below. The fruit would then be dipped and mechanically spread on drying flats. Small railway carts (trucks) would take the flats into the drying yard. After drying, the fruit would be run through a dried fruit grader and separated into six sizes, then bagged for shipment.

References

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