Quality...

The Klamath Basin is an area straddling Northern California and Southern Oregon. With an elevation of 4200 feet above sea level, the Klamath Basin provides an ideal climate of warm days and cool nights for growing potatoes. Cal-Ore Produce is located approximately 25 miles southeast of Klamath Falls, which is the major city in the area.

Merrill and Malin, Oregon and Tulelake and Newell, California are four small farming communities in the Basin in which Cal-Ore Produce grows potatoes. With a grower base of 18 Family Farms, producing over 3200 acres of potatoes, Cal-Ore Produce is by far the largest Grower/Packer/Shipper in the Klamath Basin. Our large local acreage base enables us to pack and ship potatoes most of the 12 months of a calendar year. Through the cooperation of our Family Farms and due to our close proximity to major markets, we're able to maintain a substantial presence in the fresh potato industry. The small Family Farm has the ability to emphasize quality in the production of a potato crop, and because of this, Cal-Ore Produce claims to be one of the highest quality potato growers in the West.

Next day delivery is an important facet of the produce industry. The location of the Klamath Basin, and the easy access to major modern highways, place Cal-Ore Produce and many of our customers in this enviable position. This next day delivery advantage allows our customers to maintain smaller, fresher inventories.

Many potato-shipping areas in the West struggle with shipments due to transportation shortages caused by inclement weather. Snow and cold is the most common offenders. Though we have our share of winter snows, we also have an abundance of sunshine. It is a rare occurrence when a winter shipment fails to transit because of weather.

The Cal-Ore Produce packing facility is located on U.S. Highway 161, just north of Tulelake, California. The building consists of 20,000 square feet of packing and administrative space, 9600 square feet of common storage, and over 18,000 square feet of refrigerated storage.

Our packing lines employ some of the most modern packaging equipment available, manned by a well established, experienced grading crew. With daily raw packing capacity of over 350 tons of potatoes, Cal-Ore Produce packs and ships over 1,500,000 hundred weight, or 150,000,000 pounds of potatoes annually. That's 300,000,000 eight (8) ounce servings. These numbers reflect only half of the facility's production capacity.

Anyone can pack, but not everyone can pack Quality. Our minimum packing and quality standards are regulated by Federal and State rules. We have a fulltime Federal/State Inspector at our facility at all times. It's the inspector's responsibility to insure that all minimum requirements are met.

Beyond MINIMUM, we've personally taken a larger step. Beginning in the fall of 2001, Cal-Ore Produce began the various processes for meeting the highest standards of Quality and Food Safety, as prescribed by the United States Department of Agriculture and the Oregon Department of Agriculture. Through these programs, which are monitored under the auspices of Federal and State agencies, Cal-Ore Produce offers its customers documented certification illustrating our determination to be not only the Best, but also, the Safest fresh potato Grower/Shipper/Packer in our industry. We guarantee the integrity of our product from the time the seed is planted, through the growing, harvesting, storing, packing, and shipping, until it arrives safely to your door....from Farm to Fork.

Good growers, good packer, good shipper, and good customers are a great formula for sound business. We pride ourselves in having the finest group of potato growers in the Klamath Basin. With exceptional farm product available to Cal-Ore Produce, our strict quality and sizing standards are more easily attained. Our shipping dock is open from 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday and 8 a.m. until noon on Saturdays. Beyond these shipping hours, we try to make accommodations for emergencies. Our customer base is built on "Cadillac Accounts" which demand the highest quality. Our response to this demand is the production of a "Cadillac" product. We rarely have a quality issue. In the event a customer is dissatisfied with a shipment, for whatever reason, within 48 hours of delivery, we'll pick it up. We're this confident in our product. No questions, no hassles, no re-inspection required. We wish to have only satisfied customers.

The Cal-Ore Produce packing shed is the most modern and most efficient in the Klamath Basin. With our large raw product inventory, we command the capacity to ship more than 20 semi-loads daily. This gives us the advantage of volume as well as quality. As an illustration, for this packing season, Cal-Ore Produce will pack over 1,500,000 hundredweight of potatoes. From this quantity, we'll have approximately 1,275,000 50# 5/10 and 10/5 bales available for our customer's demands. In addition to this, we'll also have approximately 1,300,000 50# cartons of U.S.#1's. Also, we'll pack approximately 200,000 hundredweight of U.S.#2 Bakers and U.S.#2 4 oz. to 9 oz., as well as over 180,000 hundredweight of washed and graded process B size.

In order to ship 20 loads of potatoes daily, we need dependable transportation at our disposal. This we have in our transportation division, Carriage Overland Transportation. Besides truck transport, we also offer refrigerated rail service originating through the Union Pacific Railroad.
Quality without uniform sizing is not quality. Whether you're in the Retail Industry or the Food Service Industry, uniform size and count are paramount. We size-and-count to individual customer specifications. If a customer has an attainable specification, we can and will pack it. Again, we wish to have only satisfied customers.

"Nature's Pride" and "John O'" are Cal-Ore's premier labels. Both labels are regarded as "highly reliable" in the fresh industry. Besides these standard premium labels, Cal-Ore Produce packs private labels for both retail and food service. This accommodation for a special pack, size, and label is available to all of our customers.

Cal-Ore Produce Incorporated is a resilient, dependable business partner. "Through snow or rain or gloom of night", through suspicious scientific opinion or political edict, Cal-Ore Produce makes every effort to accommodate our customer's demand. Your successful business is our successful business. Our focus is you.