California Cooperative Canneries

Summary

Business	Cannery
Aliases	Santa Clara Valley Growers Association
Successors	Tri-Valley Packing

California Cooperative Canneries was an Armour-affiliated cannery in the meat packing company's attempt to expand into fruits and vegetables. Although nominally independent, California Cooperative Canneries had a ten year contract to sell its full production to Armour. Armour argued that the setup would give farmers more flexibility and profits, but others saw it as an attempt by the meat-packers to dominate another area of food production. The movement sparked an epic anti-trust battle between the US Government and Armour and Swift, leading to a consent decree against the meat-packers; Armour relinquished the company soon after. There are signs that the canneries were to be sold to Bisceglia Brothers, with the new company continuing to sell to Armour Bisceglia Brothers will continue contracts with Armour. By 1924, the "independent" canneries were deeply in debt to packers. The consent decree was suspended from 1925 to 1929; the Supreme Court ruled anti-trust was appropriate.":http://newspaperarchive.com/bakersfield-californian/1929-05-20/page-2 eventually they were "allowed to keep the business. Even then, the canneries only survived a few more years, being sold to Tri-Valley Packing in 1932.

The company's manager was Vernon Campbell in 1921; he shows up in many press quotes during the early founding of the company. Floyd Bohnett, an enthusiastic member in 1922, also appeared in the press.

1922 Cannery's Directory shows sites in San Jose and Modesto, with offices in Cunard Building in San Francisco. San Jose's plant was one of the biggest canneries in the county in 1922; a 1922 history noted "There are forty canning factories in the county. One of these, the Co-operative plant, is the largest in the world. In 1921 it absorbed 30,000 tons of fruit and employed nearly 1,000 people. In the busy season of that year the combined county payroll reached over two million dollars."

Locations

Location	Years	Address	Details
Hemet		North Harvard Ave., north of Devonshire<ref>Packing Houses of Southern California.	Buildings apparently still exist.	Modesto	1922
San Francisco	1922	Cunard Building
San Jose	1922	Tenth and Taylor