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Earlier quoted context omitted.
The Free Market magic hand™ does not apply to those who have capital and are facing losses. That's only when you don't have capital and are facing losses.
Did Del Monte's investors and lenders lose money? It would be strange if they didn't.
I wonder why they cannot be moved. There are machines that simply pluck them from the dirt and have them ready to go. They could auction them off for $1/each and still make a profit. https://interestingengineering.com/lists/7-mighty-machines-f...
Nothing new here “ The works of the roots of the vines, of the trees, must be destroyed to keep up the price, and this is the saddest, bitterest thing of all. Carloads of oranges dumped on the ground. The people came for miles to take the fruit, but this could not be. How would they buy oranges at twenty cents a dozen if they could drive out and pick them up? And men with hoses squirt kerosene on the oranges, and the…
This reaction is similar to constituents who bristle at the fact that their local library destroys old books, seeing a parallel to book burnings in 1930s Germany.
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> When a processing facility closes and 55,000 acres of fruit suddenly have nowhere to go — that’s not something a family farm can just absorb Won't they at least sell the fruit to customers through grocery stores, where possible? I can see replacing the crops based on reduced future demand from the canneries, but surely the current fruit is usable.
That's what happens when "family farms" rely on a large industrial complex and grow a mono-culture that doesn't have uses other than canning. It was an easy, steady cash-positive business until it wasn't. If those farmers thought what is final product and who benefits from it most, they'd grow diversified crops to sell locally, which many California family farms do.
What if they can't make much money doing so?
This is your fault for eating fewer canned peaches. The clingstone variety is bred for canning and not well suited to eating fresh.
> When a processing facility closes and 55,000 acres of fruit suddenly have nowhere to go — that’s not something a family farm can just absorb Won't they at least sell the fruit to customers through grocery stores, where possible? I can see replacing the crops based on reduced future demand from the canneries, but surely the current fruit is usable.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Del Monte was killed by COVID. Canned food sales spiked and they thought that would last, but it didn't. The specific peaches referred to in this story are "Cling peaches", which can only be canned, they aren't sold fresh. But modern supply chains mean fresh peaches of other varieties are easily available, which has reduced the demand for canned. They'll probably replace the trees with almonds, pistachios, and walnut…
Thanks for your answers! > Del Monte was killed by COVID. Canned food sales spiked and they thought that would last, but it didn't. Why can’t they reduce to their former size? It seems the California plants had been around long before Covid
If anything would have been profitable spun off, it would have been spun off in the bankruptcy.