My Lucky Leaf Adventure: Part 2

A couple days ago, I told you all about the first part of my trip to Pennsylvania to visit with Lucky Leaf/Knouse Foods. You can read about that here.

After we left the orchard, we went to the factory to see how the fruit gets processed to become the cans of pie filling that we all know and love. Here's the thing about the factory: we couldn't take pictures inside because of some proprietary equipment so I don't have any of those to show you yet. We'll be getting some a little later and I'll share them with you then.

Here's what I can tell you, the process taking the fruit to finished product is amazing. In a nutshell here's what happens:

• The fruit is brought to the warehouse and accepted by the plant. It's then inspected by a USDA agent and given the ok to be processed. This also grades the fruit so the growers can be paid according to the quality of the fruit that they deliver.
• The fruit is taken into cold storage and stored until it can be processed.
• The fruit is washed, processed, put into jars and cooked.
• The canned product is taken on a ride and ends up in a storage warehouse where it is cool enough to be labeled and hang out until it's ready to be shipped out.

It all happens amazingly fast! Being a canner, it was fascinating to me to see how so many cans can be processed in a day where I can only do maybe 4-5 canners full in a day. I was pretty darn jealous of all that great machinery!

Now, we moved on to cold sotrage, or CA (controlled atmosphere), to see how the fruit is be stored. 

These are cherries that they were bringing in as we were there. These have a very short time to be processed, just a few days, so these won't hang out in here very long. 

These, on the other hand, can be stored for quite some time. These are Rome apples and they have been in here for about a year. We were told that they can store them for up to 2 year without any loss in texture or flavor if  they need to. That was simply amazing.

They can store apples for so long by pumping out most of the oxygen in the storage rooms and putting Nitrogen in the room in its place. Here, plant superintendent Mike Jones tells us all about the process.  The machines in this room take air from the outside and extract the nitrogen out. They can then use that to replace the oxygen and release everything else back outside. 

Now it was time to visit the solar fields!

These solar panels are located in an area that been capped and couldn't be used for anything else. What a great instance of taking something that would be otherwise unusable and making it into a viable resource!

Each panel has been wired together and they collect energy from the sun and use the large white box below to convert it into usable power for the plant. These solar panels make up about 30% of the energy used by the plant. Fantastic!

From the solar fields we had our lunch break at Knouse Foods. We met with Ken Guise, President and Chief Executive Officer and Dick Esser, VP of Sales. From them we got a nice history of the company (it was founded in 1949) and learned a little more about how they value their growers and employees.

The it was off to the technical center for a chance to sample products. Here we met with Mervyn D'Souza, Director of Technical Services/Quality Assurance and Charles Bennet, Manager of Environmental Affairs. I'm proud to say that this is one company that really strives to be environmentally healthy and green.

Here are all of the Musselman's products available for us to sample. I have had the applesauce before, but I was amazed at the varieties and sizes/packaging that are available.

And here are the Lucky Leaf pie fillings we were able to sample. Some of these I had never tried before and with the exception of the Raisin Filling, which I think is an acquired taste, I really LOVED them all.

The flavors that we sampled were: Apple, Apricot, Peach, Pineapple, Cherry, Strawberry, Sweet Dark Cherry, Raspberry, Blackberry, Blueberry, Raisin and Lemon. Not only were they very tasty, they were so pretty and rich in color. I have to say that the Sweet Dark Cherry and Blackberry were probably my favorites. Cherries aren't really my most favorite in the fruit world, but this filling is superb.

There is so much that I am probably leaving out, so many facts and numbers that I wanted to share that I have simply lost because there was just so much information to process in such a short time. What I came away with, and what mattered to me most, was the way this company cares, really cares, about their growers, employees, product and safety. Those cans of pie filling sitting on the store shelves are more than just a product, they are the combined efforts of many to make the best, safest, tastiest product that they can.

I'm proud to be a Blog Ambassador for Lucky Leaf and Knouse Foods. I will forever be a loyal customer and I have no problem shouting their praises from the rooftops because I know and I have seen the comitment to quality and the drive to produce something that is a quality product. I'm so grateful for the chance to have gone on this trip and I thank everyone who worked so hard to make it happen. I loved getting to meet the other bloggers and to spend that time with them, it was truly a once in a lifetime experience.

Have you visited Lucky Leaf and checked out their website? They have a store locator so you can find out where to get your hands on some Lucky Leaf goodies!
You can also follow Lucky Leaf on Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest. Not that you have to or anything, but I would if I were you ;)

Thank you for coming along with me to the beautiful orchard of Peach Glen, I hope you enjoyed the trip as much as I did!