Where do you get your produce containers/boxes?

[jflournoy]

I'm going to be new to the "market gardening" thing this year, and I've been trying to find an on-line source for boxes and other type containers that I would take my produce (mostly tomatoes, squash and zucchini) to market in. I'm talking about containers that are specifically for produce (flats, for example). Haven't had much luck finding what I'm looking for. Do any of you have an on-line source you could share for such items?

[Wi-sunflower]

Something that you will see at a lot of markets is the hard plastic, black crate. It's 1 bu in size but also comes in 3/4 and 1/2 bu for the shorter crates. Used to be that you could get them for a buck or 2 each, any place that imported bulbs from Holland. I used to get a truckload of them from Michigan Bulb. They were cheap because they took up as much room empty as full and it cost too much to ship them back to Holland.

But since around 2000, they changed the crates to a fold-down design that are returnable. So getting the sturdier crates is hard now. I don't have a source any more at all. I just hope I don't lose too many more as they do tend to "grow legs" and disappear.

For the solid green or tan crates that some growers use, Jordan Seed near Minn, Mn carries them, but don't be shocked to find they are around $10+ each depending on size and quantity.

Some growers use the wooden crates that can be found at orchard supplies. I've used wood, but they do tend to need a lot of repair after just a season or 2.

For waxed boxes, Monte in Mi has decent, tho not the best prices. They also have just about everything else in containers you would need for farmers markets like berry tills (the pint and quart containers) and bags.

For someone just starting, your best option would be to make friends with your local grocery store. Especially if it's an independent rather than a chain. Often you can get used waxed boxes and banana boxes for free as long as you pick up promptly so they don't create a storage problem for the stores.

ONE BIG ISSUE tho with using old boxes --- if you use a box that is printed with "California Produce" (some named farm) on the box, customers and other farmers MAY accuse you of BUYING rather than growing. A few farmers markets even prohibit using the boxes for that reason. My market asks you to turn the boxes inside out.

Good luck finding what you need.
Carol

[Labradors2]

Something I have seen at our Farmer's Market is that the cherry tomatoes are displayed in a little square green plastic mesh container, then when someone wants to buy that, the contents are emptied into a clear plastic bag. Maybe the guy was short on containers!

Linda

[natural]

When I was farming, I used plastic bulb crates but then switched to single layer 10 lb cardboard tomato boxes. I could stack 2 of the boxes on top of each other and set those inside of a bulb crate, thus doubling my capacity for transport to markets. (My goal was to NEVER stack heirloom tomatoes on top of each other). The nice thing about this system was that I was using the same boxes for market and for my restaurant sales.

The nicest boxes that I ever purchased were from Temple-Inland, which was dis-banded a few years ago. These 10 lb tomato boxes were white as opposed to the black boxes that are more readily available. Now I need to purchase more boxes and cannot find these anywhere. I have found a few sources of similar boxes on the web (SoContainers, hydro-gardens) but they do not have local distribution sites. I am afraid of the shipping costs.



Bill

[Salsacharley]

I've got a buddy who owns a wholesale produce company. He gets tons of the fold up black flats that Carol refers to. I got a bunch of the ones with 4" fold up sides and they work well, except you really have to keep them out of the sun when they have tomatoes in them. You will have stewed tomatoes in no time with that black plastic heating up.

I'm hoping to switch to my buddy's cardboard flats that have form fitted plastic liners to hold tomatoes in place. They aren't as sturdy but they are easier on the fruit.

I've also been saving plastic apple "clam shell" packages I get when I buy a dozen apples at "Large Mart". They are clear and have tops and bottoms form fitted for individual fruit.

I would suggest approaching grocers and wholesalers to see if you can get them to unload some of their stuff.

[Hermitian]

Robert Mann Packaging.

[jflournoy]

Thanks much for all the comments. I will definitely check all of those places out.

I smiled at the Temple-Inland mention, that took me for a ride on the wayback machine. I grew up and lived for 25 years only about 10 miles from their headquarters office in Diboll, Texas. That was before I was thinking of growing tomatoes for sale and looking for boxes

There is a fellow about 40 miles from me who grows for a produce auction and he has boxes for sale, but I wanted to do some price-checking and see if his rates were reasonable. I'm assuming he buys them in bulk and then re-sells them to local growers. He asks $1.10 for a flat (single stacked) tomato box and .55 cents for a peck box with a wire handle. Do those sound like pretty decent prices?

[natural]

I think $1.10 is reasonable. I paid 75 cents per box 4 years ago. That was w/o shipping because they were relatively local. I do not think that I can get those boxers cheaper than $1.10 if I am also paying shipping.

[Wi-sunflower]

Yes those prices are great. I was paying that or more 25 years ago.

As to the green plastic mesh pints, they are called "berry tills" and they are hard to find these days. So many have gone to the clear baskets or the clear clamshells. I hate both. They don't have enough ventilation and produce will go bad in them, or cook in the sun. I also display my cherry tomatoes in the green mesh but dump them in a bag so I re-use the basket.

Carol

[LDx4]

The green mesh plastic pints are still available at Form-Tex Plastics

http://www.formtex.com/sh/Vented-Produce-Clamshells/

I also display cherry tomatoes in the mesh basket and empty them into a bag to save the basket if possible.

Lyn

[Wi-sunflower]

I forgot to mention that many vendors now use the pints made from pressed "pulp" because they are easily available. IF you give the basket with the sale, that's OK. But if you keep the basket, those pulp things aren't very sanitary. The other thing is if the produce is wet, or the weather is wet -- Well you can figure that out !!!

That Form-tex link has a good price on the green mesh, tho it would depend a bit on shipping for me.

One more thing about the mesh baskets -- of course they have been "cheaped down" by making them much thinner than they used to be. So we ALWAYS use 2 together. That keeps them from breaking as quickly. When they DO crack, we just rotate the cracks so they are on opposite sides and get some more life out of them.

Wet produce and weather is also why I do not use paper bags -- in 1 end and out the other !! I know plenty of people don't like plastic, but paper just isn't practical at farmers markets. At Madison, many customers are into recycling so bring their own cloth or string bags or re-use plastic from other places.

Carol

[moon1234]

It depends on where you are located and how much you intend to buy. Monte Packaging is one of the biggest out there for cardboard. Jordan's resells their stuff as does glacieriv in Baraboo (they are really just a drop shipper).

We found the Amish produce auction in Dalton, WI is the cheapest place to get all of our cardboard, pulp, pallet, rubber band supplies. If you go in may you get a 10% discount. We buy around 500 berry boxes, 30-40 pallet bins and extra pallets, about 6000 pint pulp containers, etc. etc.

Packaging is evil in my opinion. It is a large cost when it is usually a single use item. We have invested in RPCs, the fold down crates Carol referred to, and the green 1.75 bushel bins and yellow 7/8 bushel bins from Ropak. The plastic RPCs can be bought from TranPak in California or from numerous sources in Canada. We bought Smart Crates from AMA Plastics in Canada. They cost around $14 each, but we turned them over 30 times last year. If we used cardboard single use the cost would have been double.

The Ropak containers we get from Nolt's Midwest Produce Supplies (Amish). Green 1.75 bushel bins are around $16 each and yellow 7/8 bushel are around $12-$13 I think.

If you can get good customers who will return RPCs, and who you can charge for ones that walk away, then RPCs will pay you back very quickly. Selling a case of cherry tomatoes (12 pints) will cost you $.90 for the case itself and the pints are $.04/each. So each case as an embedded $1.50 in packaging cost, not taking into account the shipping you may have paid. At those rates it only takes 10 round trips and the RPC is paid for. All trips after that are money in the bank.

We typically delivered three times a week to our institutions and restaurants last year. That means the RPCs paid for themselves in less than a month. We got to keep 10 weeks worth or 30x1.50=$45 extra dollars PER CASE last year that did not go into packaging for the last 10 weeks of the season. This year we stand to save 42x1.50=$63 per case/season in saved packing costs. It adds up to thousands of saved dollars.

Up front cost is much higher than cardboard, but long term the farm saves a lot of money. The RPCs should last 100-200 round trips or more. Just depends how hard we are on them. We try to save the Green and Yellow bins for field harvesting.

You could also look at the versa crates. I think if I didn't already have an investment in the current bins I would buy them instead.

[Wi-sunflower]

I've heard about that Amish Auction but have never gone there or sold there. I'll have to check it out this summer since it's not all that far from me.

Carol

[moon1234]

I don't know that you would want to sell there. We have stayed for the auctions and almost always felt sick when leaving at the low prices the growers received. There are a lot of grocery stores that are now buying here as well. There is nothing wrong with the auction and the produce usually looks good, but the prices are too low to consider trucking stuff up there, in my opinion.

For supplies, they are a good local source. There are actually three amish auction sites in Wisconsin. The one we go to is in Dalton and is called Tri-County Produce Auction.

A lot of the local grocery's will list how far away their produce is grown. Many that buy at the auction list the auction site as the distance to the farm. The auction considers anything grown within one hundred miles "local". Add that to the distance to the grocery and local becomes anything within 150-200 miles. Shoppers who don't know better think they are buying "local" produce when in fact it could have come from another state. Again, not the auctions fault, but it is dishonest to advertise it as "local" when in fact it might not be.

Info on it here: http://www.ifmwi.org/documents/pdf/T...on_profile.pdf

http://www.wisfarmer.com/business/co...205795801.html

One other thing to watch out for is vendors at the "farmer's market" going to the auction and buying produce and then re-selling it at the farmer's market. We had three hmong vendors kicked out last year because they only grew 1/4 of what they actually sold. The rest they bought from the auction or from each other. Our markets are grower's only. Re-selling is not allowed. The only reason we discovered this was due to my wife making a mid-season run for more boxes. We saw several of the hmong buying produce with they were then re-selling the next day.

It was easy to determine that they were reselling because they had no clue what variety it was, how it was grown, etc. Some of the boxes in their vans had their buyer number written on them yet from the auction. So the auction can be a double edged sword.

[biscgolf]

Originally Posted by moon1234

The Ropak containers we get from Nolt's Midwest Produce Supplies (Amish). Green 1.75 bushel bins are around $16 each and yellow 7/8 bushel are around $12-$13 I think.

I use Nolt's east coast for a lot of stuff- good prices and good service.