From the Cool Chain to the Bag
After the war, a steel vacuum tube that pulled field heat from lettuce in half an hour killed the ice plant and the packing shed and created the field crew. Refrigerated trucks and interstates ended the Pacific Fruit Express in 1978, while broccoli, strawberries, and winter shuttling to Yuma multiplied. In 1989 a breathable bag put packaged salad nationwide, and the concentration it created meant one contaminated field could become a national event.
Who's who
- Rex Louis BrunsingNamed inventor on the 1958 vacuum-cooling lettuce patent
- Wells A. WebbNamed inventor on the 1958 vacuum-cooling lettuce patent
- Bud Antle+1 more episodeGrower-shipper credited by trade press with pioneering vacuum cooling
- Bruce Taylor+1 more episodeFounded Taylor Farms in 1995 after leading Fresh Express development
- Bruce Church+2 more episodesFounder of the ice-and-lettuce firm that became Fresh Express
- Frederick McKinley JonesDesigned the truck refrigeration unit behind Thermo King
Where it happens
- Salinas, California+7 more episodesWhere vacuum cooling was tested and commercialized from the late 1940s
- Yuma, Arizona+2 more episodesWinter deck supplying most of the nation's leafy greens
- Santa Lucia Highlands, CaliforniaValley benches planted to wine grapes from the 1960s
- San Benito County, California+2 more episodesTraced source of the 2006 spinach E. coli outbreak
- Imperial Valley, California+2 more episodesEarlier winter lettuce region
Timeline
- 1946The first attempt at vacuum cooling lettuce takes place near Salinas.
- 1955Nine vacuum-cooling plants handle 95 percent of the valley's lettuce.
- March 1978Pacific Fruit Express goes out of business.
- 1989Fresh Express ships the first nationally distributed retail bagged salad in a breathable bag.
- 1995Bruce Taylor and partners found Taylor Fresh Foods, known as Taylor Farms.
- September 2006A spinach E. coli outbreak traced to San Benito County sickens 276 and kills three.
Still debated
The date and inventor of vacuum cooling are unsettled; the safe phrase is developed in and around Salinas between 1946 and 1950, and patented in 1958. Historians also weigh technology against strategy in the shed's disappearance, and sources disagree on the Santa Lucia Highlands appellation date.
