Almost everyone at some point or another has come into contact with a
DOLE product, be it a pineapple, a banana or a piece of lettuce. This past
week I had the wonderful opportunity to tour some of their extensive
facilities in Soledad, California.
We began our tour in the vast Lettuce fields outside the processing
plants. Lettuce monoculture spread almost from horizon to horizon. As our
guides, two burly men in sunglasses, explained to us the ups and downs of
large scale, monoculture farming we baked in the sun.
We were allowed to taste some of the unprocessed lettuce straight from
the head. It had a strange chemical aftertaste. DOLE uses pesticides on its
crops generously. As a result of these poisons, the fields have to be left
unmanned for sometimes days at a time. Even after several days, the workers
must wear full-body, chemical-protection suits. Contact with these chemicals
can have the short-term effects of burns, nausea, delirium, and the long-term
effects of birth defects and cancer.
After having witnessed the furrowed, chemical-soaked, homogeneity of
chlorophyll that spread before us, we got back into the vans and followed our
guides' truck into the parking lot of the plant itself. After dealing with
the bureaucracy of paperwork, name tags, and signing in, that can
generally be expected when entering a corporate nexus, we were ferried up
several flights of stairs and down a long hallway into the bowels of the
plant.
Along one of the whitewashed walls of the hallway ran a vast viewing
window. Below us, on the factory floor, lay the organs of the beast that is
DOLE. In one end goes a head of lettuce; out the other comes a transport
vehicle filled with piles of neatly packaged processed lettuce. This lettuce
then travels thousands of miles to stock the shelves of all manner of
distributors, from corner stores to Albertsons.
On the floor giant machines, filled with conveyor belts and turbines,
hummed and whirred. Workers dressed in white swarmed around it. Some stuck to
their prospective stations while others busied themselves with general
adjustments and calibrations. Our guides told us that the workers toil at
their stations for up to nine hours a day. Below us lay what was basically
a highly mechanized assembly line. But the product of this assembly line was
by no means the Model T Ford, but rather a ready-made salad packaged and
prepped to be shipped across the nation.
The Lettuce began by being chopped and separated. Then it began its
extensive washing and sterilization process. Chemicals must both be added and
removed before the Lettuce can be considered a product ready-for-sale. It ran
along conveyor belts, was sprayed with water, was shot through tubes, was
shaken and tossed, and was sprayed again. Portions of the machine
resembled a long and multi-chambered washing machine.
After the lettuce has been cleaned it is weighed and portioned out into
several sizes of plastic bags. It is manually sorted and loaded into
cardboard boxes. The cardboard boxes are stacked onto a forklift that then
deposits them into a moving van. They are then shipped to your local purveyor
of food to wait on the shelf for your convenience.
To the somewhat objective and unfamished witness, the whole process
seemed somewhat overemphasized and distasteful. The lettuce seemed to take a
certain amount of abuse as it made its way through the machine. Also the fact
that this packaged lettuce is that which is too unsightly to be sold whole is
somewhat stomach turning. After having witnessed this industrial salad
packing, I will think twice before I buy another instant Caesar from our good
friends at DOLE.
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