Jack Brown moves aggressively after tough 2012
Jack Brown moves aggressively after tough 2012
SPARTA, MI — To prepare its well-established packinghouse for the 2011 apple season, Jack Brown Produce Inc., here, added a sophisticated second packingline. Among other benefits, the new line brought a capability to scan for internal defects in apples, according to Sales Manager, Mitchell Brinks.
Then, a frost reduced the 2012 Michigan apple crop to less than 10 percent of the state’s normal volume. Although Jack Brown packed some apples until November 2012, the firm’s equipment was grossly under utilized. Still, the new line worked well.
This summer, work was being completed to extend the new technology to the first line in the firm’s packinghouse.
Although Jack Brown, its industry and the state lost jobs and suffered huge financial losses because of the freeze “we have to believe in the future of this business,” Brinks said. “A lot of good things are going to happen. Trees are being planted in big numbers.”
Jack Brown is strictly an apple packing and marketing company, owned by a group of growers. But growers need not be stockholders to use the company’s service. Brinks said about 70 Michigan growers use Jack Brown services. The majority are on the Ridge, with a group of growers in northwest Michigan also involved.
Chase said that Michigan growers over the last 10 years have invested a great deal into planting superior new apple varieties on trellised dwarfing rootstocks. These high-density plantings have about 1,000 trees per acre. Key varieties are Honeycrisp, Gala, Jonagold and Fuji.
Jack Brown mostly sells to customers east of the Mississippi River, with retailers the primary category, and terminal market customers receiving about 10 percent of the firm’s apples.
