DELANO, Calif. (KMPH) -
The world's largest citrus packing plant is now up
and running in the South Valley, bringing 500 new jobs with it.
Paramount Citrus held a grand opening Friday for its new Cuties packing plant in Delano.
Cuties is the brand name for the
popular line of mandarin oranges the company grows and markets, and
they're so popular, company officials say, they built this plant with
plenty of room for growth.
"We currently have about 7,500 of producing
acres today of Cutie product, and we've got another 6,000 that will be
maturing over the next several years. We built this facility to be able to
support that volume in the future. We've currently got five pack lines that are
running today and one pre-sort, and ultimately we'll be expanding to eight pack
lines in the future so very excited about that," said Jason Blake, vice president of packing at Paramount Citrus.
Blake says that also means more future jobs at the state-of-the-art
plant, up to 500 more down the road.
