Harvest begins with picking every cherry by hand.

Cherries are harvested into field lugs before being placed into cherry bins.

Cherries are received at a facility nearby the orchards for rapid processing.

Inspection of fruit brought directly from the orchard.

Hydrocooling of the harvested fruit to take the field heat out of the cherry as soon as possible. Once cherries are cooled with water, they are kept cool all the way to the retailer.

Fruit from the hydrocoolers are brought inside and ready for processing.

Field bins full of cherries run through the automated dumper to begin the process through the packing facilities.

Bulk amounts of leaves and such are removed from this initial phase. Cherries take a ride up their first elevator.

Cherries travel accross sorting conveyors. Any leftover leaves are removed. Defects are removed and the cherries travel through tubes to the next process.

Cherries are kept in water to keep the cool and provides a way to keep them traveling throughout the process.

Cherries then take a ride up large elevators loaded with large, crisp dark-sweet cherries.

Elevator is at the top of the sizing equipment. 10 pounds of cherries per second can pass over the top of each elevator.

Cherries are spread out accross the conveyor to be ready for the next step.

Cherries pass into the "Accurow Sizer" where stem groupings are cut and cherries are sized.

Cherries travel down the sizer and the different row size fruit is dropped into flumes full of water.

Sizing keeps the fruit a consistant size. Each flume takes the cherries to different locations ready for packing into bags, clam shells or bulk-fill cartons.

This much equipment allows an estimated 2.5 million cartons of cherries to be packed in the upcoming 2002 cherry harvest.

Elevators take the cherries from the sizing flumes up to the bagging/clam shell equipment.

Each bagging machine weighs the amount going into the bag. There are 5 different bag sizes to pack during a given season. Dark-sweet cherries are packed into 1.1 lb. or 1.6 lb. bags for export. They are packed in 2.2 lb. bags for domestic markets.

Rainier cherries are packed in 1.25 lb. bags for domestic distribution. 500gm bags are also packed for some export markets.

Clam shells are filled by several pieces of equipment. 2 lb. 4 lb. are the most widely used for dark-sweet cherries. 1 lb. and 2 lb. Rainier clam shells are also packed.

Cherries are also packed in bulk-fill cartons for those markets that desire them. Each carton has a liner that is sealed before being lided and palletized.