Tales From Produce (A)Isle: The Turning Of The Fruits

 One of the things I have become exposed to on the tropical beaches and gently waving palms of Product (A)Isle is the changing of the agricultural year as denoted by the fruits we feature and are on sale.

When I originally started working in earnest in July, cherries were the top of our list.  Throughout July and even into August, we went through 8 to 10 flats of cherries even during my limited shifts.  Most of the cherries were from Washington.  Some just came in boxes, their bags encased on white plastic bags, others came in artfully decorated boxes with full colour inserts telling us how these were carefully grown in an artisanal style.  

Perhaps unsurprisingly, our customers have no concern about the artisanal nature of cherries and are purely concerned with price.  Out went the bags of cherries with the inserts and decorated boxes to grace a recycle bin.

Cherries in turn gave way to stone fruits and their kin. Peaches and nectarines graced the coconut groves.  On the whole they are easier to deal with as they containers they mostly come in - black folding containers called IFCOs which undoubtedly stands for something I cannot remember - can be easily stacked on the tables and slanted shelves, and the cardboard boxes that the rest come in are easily manageable in terms of weight distribution - the fruits being more fragile than, say, onions, and are packaged accordingly.

One additional advantage of stone fruits:  unlike cherries, where the unwritten code seemed to be "it is okay to sample and spit your pit out on the floor", stone fruits are much too big to each sample and spit the pits to the side.  (We are still finding cherry pits on the floor under things from three months ago; my view of human nature on the whole remains as dismal as it ever was.)

Stone fruits have in turn given way to grapes and pears and apples.  These are more familiar fruits and timing to me as these were all grown in Old Home and local towns would have entire industries geared around them.  Most of the applies we have are the ones that we usually have throughout the year, although there are some specialties (Sweet Tango, Kanzi) which seem to have appeared.  At least three kinds of pears as well which I find amusing:  my memory of pears growing up was from a single tree that my mother faithfully canned for many years and of which I could not tell you the name.

What comes next?  Frankly, I have no idea - but that is one of the joys of this job among the many including no after work emails and being able to leave the job on the beaches and in the groves.  It is nice to have a job where more than likely the surprises are all actually pleasant and educational ones.