Food: Firm still packs it in, but differently

SALEM, Ore. — As much of the fruit-packing business in the Willamette Valley slumped, brothers David and Peter Truitt went out on a limb with a new technology: cooked foods packed in flexible pouches and trays that don't require refrigeration.

In the days before grocery shoppers bought tuna in foil pouches, the concept seemed strange.

U.S. military forces, which only recently had adopted Meals Ready to Eat (MREs) to feed troops in the field, were among the few to seize on the potential.

Company accountants saw the Truitts' "special-products" line begun 25 years ago as a financial black hole — the market wasn't receptive, and packing items such as Chicken Mediterranean in microwavable trays was far more complex than putting green beans in metal cans.

"I think we were just bull-headed," said David Truitt, who co-owns the company with his brother.

The Truitts' many years of pioneering special products has culminated in a new food-processing plant in West Salem that is running at full capacity and is hiring workers. It's a rare example of prosperity in a local food-processing industry that has been dwindling for years.

Truitt Brothers spent about $6 million to turn the former Agripac factory into its largest expansion in a dozen years.

Foods packaged in foil or plastic pouches, such as chicken-and-vegetable dishes made for the Banquet brand that recently sailed down the production line, give the company an alternative to its traditional canning business.

For six years, Truitt Brothers hasn't turned a profit on packing foods in metal cans.

But sales of the company's shelf-stable foods in pouches and trays — another form of "canning" — are taking off.

"We saw way back in the '70s that the canning business was going to get tougher and tougher," said Peter Truitt.

The brothers made the right call about the fragile state of the industry. A slew of fruit and vegetable packers, here and across the nation, have gone belly up. The Chiquita cannery in West Salem joined the procession of closed plants this year, a bad omen for food-processing workers as well as local farmers who grow crops for food-processing plants.

Yet, in the middle of Oregon's recession, Truitt Brothers has hired about 100 temporary workers to staff its special-products department. Company officials say those seasonal jobs, which pay from $6.90 to $15.50 an hour, stand a good chance of becoming permanent positions within a year. That would mean a 40 percent increase in its work force.

While it's a small part of its business, Truitt Brothers has provided foods distributed to relief agencies and the military.

If the company's sales stay on track, it's poised to create more permanent jobs than were lost when Chiquita left town.

John Henry Wells, a scientist with Oregon State University's Food Innovation Center, said foods in metal cans have gotten a bad rap from some consumers who snub them as "bomb-shelter food" lacking flavor.

Items packed in pouches and trays might be able to shed that stigma, he said. "It's still something that's a bit unfamiliar to consumers," Wells said. The process has been around since the 1960s, but it wasn't widely used until the '90s.

Truitt Brothers makes about 140 entrees packed in pouches and trays. The products range from institutional-sized, 6-pound pouches of fruit fillings, beef stews and chiles to single-serving meals. Truitt Brothers even briefly packed an ostrich dish for a health-food distributor.