Kelly Bros. specializes in procuring fresh pack eliminations for juice and processing
Kelly Bros. specializes in procuring fresh pack eliminations for juice and processing
Kelly Bros. Inc. in Exeter, CA, was started in 2010 to focus on finding a home in the processing industry for byproducts from fresh citrus packinghouses.
“We would go to the packinghouses and ask for their eliminations,” meaning basically anything that was not being packed in a carton or tri-wall for the fresh market. “We would then take it to the juice plants” which make not-from-concentrate orange juice, said Patrick Kelly, president and one of three brothers in the company, the others being Brian Kelly, supply chain manager, and Christopher Kelly, chief of operations.
That has been “the basis of our business” since its inception, Kelly said, but the services offered by the company have since expanded.
In the citrus category, Kelly Bros. now also provides choice and fancy quality citrus to fresh-cut processors who produce such value-added products as wagon wheels for foodservice and sectioned citrus for fruit bowls. In addition, the company provides pineapples, grapes and stone fruit to the same processing markets.
Christopher Kelly and Patrick Kelly of Kelly Bros. Inc. “When it comes to our customers, our highest priorities are quality and integrity,” stated the company brochure. “Superior quality is our number one goal, and providing inspections at our farms, packinghouses and cold storages ensures consistency. Since our integrity is crucial with our team, we provide accurate and proper reporting, the latest product information, excellent communication and product traceability.”
The company has also expanded the geographic scope of its sourcing and now procures citrus for customers from other areas such as Texas, Kelly said.
“We don’t sell the end product” or do the value added processing, Kelly explained. “We don’t sell [or make] the orange juice. We are supplying the processors.”
One service the company offers to customers is to furnish them with all of the third-party food-safety audits that they need, such as GAP or Primus audits, he said.
“We really focus on the specifications of what [customers] need,” making sure that “we supply the processor with the exact specifications” they require for their juice or their value-added products, so they can get the necessary yields from the fruit as well as the required quality.
Importantly, “I have done my research on the end user side and figured out exactly what they need,” Kelly said. Having researched the product “has given me a little bit of a competitive edge.”