Prima Frutta Packing Inc came into existence in 1991 when Tim Sambado, son of Primavera Marketing owner Lawrence Sambado, decided to implement his industrial engineering expertise and expand upon the family business.  Since then, Prima Frutta has developed into an industry leader in packing cherries, walnuts, and apples.

On a recent visit to their facility in Linden, California, we had the pleasure of talking with Tim about how Macro Plastics has helped his business over the years.

Back in 1990 when Tim was trying to enter the apple packing business, he and the company took a hard look at which harvest bins would be best for the company.  At that time, they only had a handful of wood bins, so that provided him the opportunity to do his own research and look into the new-to-market MacroBin.

Wood bins were the standard at the time, but word was spreading of a better, more cost-effective option.  After comparing the differences in maintenance, produce protection, ease of handling in the orchards, and cooling aptitude, it became clear to Tim that plastic was the future of agricultural bins.

Prima Frutta bought 6,000 of our original MacroBins to start their apple packing business.  They are now currently stocked with a total of over 30,000 26-FV MacroBins, which includes some of those original 1990 bins.

“We first anticipated 20 years out of them.  We are getting more than that in many cases”

Unfortunately, Macro Plastics was not offering a bin specific to cherries early on so Prima Frutta used wood bins for their cherries – a very fragile product that requires delicate handling and cool temperatures once picked.  They would add padding to the insides of the bins to prevent bruising, but this greatly reduced the ability to cool.

Once Macro Plastics came out with a cherry bin, Tim immediately made the switch to plastic and hasn’t bought another wood bin since.  Our plastic bins gave the cherries a smooth inside finish that limits bruising, and ventilation slots to help with the cooling process.  They are also much easier to handle in the orchard as well as in the packing facility.

Tim says that before the MacroBin, “large canneries were spending millions of dollars just to maintain their large fleet of wood bins”.

 

We thank Prima Frutta for allowing us to check out their facilities and Tim Sambado for his testimonial.