How Sun Dried Tomatoes are Made (in California)

this week on the produce nerd we're going to take you behind the scenes of a sun-dried tomato operation the harvested trailers full of tomatoes arrived with tomato drying facilities where they are unloaded out the side of the trailer with water once they drain out of the trailers they start on the conveyor line the tomatoes continue on the conveyor line for two single pass wash steps where they are sprayed with sanitized water the tomatoes are then hand sorted to remove any discolored tomatoes or any field debris which are disposed of in the middle length the tomatoes are then mechanically sorted by size into small medium and large in the water flume at the bottom there and then they are transported into separate lanes the tomato's receive a third single pass washed up with sanitizer prior to being mechanically sliced in half and then they receive a fourth single pass wash for sanitizing the tomatoes are transported onto wooden trays where workers do an additional hand sort for any tomatoes that are larger than the rest or are discolored as well as any field debris that was not discarded previously the trays continue on the conveyor line to be stacked with other trays the stacks of trays are either transported to storage rooms where they are gas with sulfur dioxide which acts as a preservative or to a dehydrating room where they say overnight the next day the tray stacks are loaded up onto trucks and transported to the drying yard when the trays of tomatoes are ready to be dried they are placed in a specific section of the drying yard that is marked with the date they started drying the day the tomatoes were harvested and the number of trays that are included in a lot each lot will dry for nine to fourteen days and will then be picked up depending on the final moisture content of the tomatoes each tray of tomatoes has to be manually laid out to dry this same process occurs when the trays are picked up the only difference is that the trays weigh significantly less since the tomatoes are dried at this point once the dried tomato trays have been stacked they are transported back to the packing line the trays of dried tomatoes are then placed onto the packing line where the tomatoes are agitated by two large brushes to help loosen the dried tomatoes from the wooden trays the tomatoes are then manually scraped off of the trays once the tomatoes have been scraped the wooden trays are turned upside down where they are dropped onto a conveyor line they are then hand sorted and continue being transported on the conveyor line the dried tomatoes go through two separate shaking steps the first shaking step removes any tomato skins seeds or any leftover lightweight debris the second shaking step continues to soar out any additional debris and can also sort the dried tomatoes into small medium and large sizes the dried tomatoes then go through a final hand sorting step prior to being placed into bins for storage since the tomato harvesting season is only a few months out of the year the tomatoes are processed as they are brought in from the field and then they are stored until an order arrives from the customer thank you for watching please subscribe to the produce nerd comm where a new blog will be posted every Tuesday

Channel: The Produce Nerd

Views: 544,832

Rating: 4.730979 out of 5

Keywords: dried produce, how tomatoes are dried, how sun dried tomatoes are made, sun dried tomato processing, how to dry tomatoes in the sun, sun dried tomatoes, drying tomatoes, how to make sundried tomatoes, tomato processing, drying cherry tomatoes in the sun, california grown, central valley, morning star company, sulfur dioxide, wooden trays, conveyor, sanitizer, slicing, dehydrating room, packing, sorting, diced tomatoes, Wash step, Newman california, how are sun dried tomatoes made

Id: G6R21t4jWLU

Length: 5min 59sec (359 seconds)

Published: Tue Nov 01 2016