8/20/02

By CAROL KINSLEY

How many pints of pickled peppers can a person pack and pasteurize per day? The more gleaming glass jars a worker can stuff with cucumber slices for stacked sandwich toppers at B & G Foods Inc. in Hurlock, Md., the higher the incentive over base pay. Some workers can make up to $15 or $16 an hour, explained Rodger Graham, corporate operations controller.
Hand-packing produces better quality pickles than mechanically packed products, he added. Workers rapidly stack a handful of cucumber slices, fit them through the opening of the jar, then tuck in a few more to fill the container. Spices are measured in before the cucumbers; brine is added farther down the processing line. The pickles are heated to between 180 and 185 degrees for 6 to 8 minutes, then cooled and packed in boxes.
Visitors must stay within the yellow-lined walkway inside the fast-paced plant. “We’re very safety conscious. We’ve gone 401 days without a loss-time accident,” Graham told a group of officials from Maryland Department of Agriculture, who sported hair nets, safety glasses and ear plugs as they toured the plant last week.
Among the visitors was State Ag Secretary Hagner Mister, who had missed a recent open house of a new seafood processing plant in Hurlock and was visiting both facilities.
Accompanying the group was Hurlock Mayor Don Bradley. Bradley said the town recognizes its dependence on agriculture. “We’re not pretty; we’re not on the water. We face the fact that we’re farmer-based.”
Bradley noted that potatoes have replaced tomatoes as a popular crop since the last cannery on the Eastern Shore closed. Much of the potato crop is grown for the Ruf Co. which grades them at a facility a stone’s throw from the B & G plant and transports them to be made into potato chips.
B & G, which stands for Bloch & Guggenheimer, a privately held New York firm, annually takes in 25 million pounds of potential pickle products from producers within a 50-mile radius of Hurlock. Averaging 50 pounds per bushel and 100 bushels per acre, that accounts for some 5,000 acres of production. About 80 percent of what the plant processes is locally grown.
The company checks on the crop during the growing season and everything is inspected before it comes into the facility, said Graham. Since cucumbers mature in 70 to 80 days, a farmer can get in a second crop it there’s a disaster. Usually, he said, the second crop grows faster.
The plant could handle greater production. “We’re running at 40 percent capacity,” Graham said. The facility was over built on purpose when the old plant was expanded. In season, the plant is at 70 percent of capacity. In the off-season, it’s at 30 percent.
“We could handle more pickles, so long as the market could take them. The category is not growing right now,” Graham said. He noted that competitor Vlasic is now in Chapter 11 bankruptcy and Klaussen is being purchased.
The facility is expanding its land-holdings with an eye to increased security. B & G has purchased the cement factory next door and is looking at 15 acres more. Since Sept. 11, the company has added a new guard shack and new fencing.
“The next potential target could be the food supply,” Graham said. With a newly configured entrance, perimeter fencing could protect product from time of delivery to the site.
There are 150 full-time employees and in season, from May to November, 300 more are added. Turn-over is a problem, Graham said. The firm will hire about 700 people to keep 300 on the job.
B & G’s products are difficult to find in Maryland, the ag officials noted. Graham agreed. “Our biggest market is New York. We have store door delivery there,” he said. The company originated in New York City and Long Island, and the sales, marketing and corporate offices are still there. The manufacturing end was moved to Hurlock, “but we haven’t changed our sales focus,” he explained.
For a while, retail sales were offered at the Hurlock facility. “We opened an office, put in a cash register,” he said. “But we needed the office space,” so the sales outlet was closed.
The company also makes, in other plants, such items as B&M baked beans, a variety of cooking wines, Brer Rabbit molasses, maple syrup and sauerkraut that comes highly recommended by the mayor of Hurlock.