Suntreat Packing & Shipping Company in Lindsay, California is in the heart of the Great Central Valley. With fertile soil, warm summers and cool winters, the Valley provides the ideal growing conditions for the fruit and the perfect location for the packing house.

Suntreat has been packing oranges since 1958. Today, Suntreat packs and markets navels, valencias, summer navels and lemons, as well as certain specialty citrus varieties such as blood oranges, minneolas and pummelos.

Over the years, Suntreat has developed and maintained a packing and marketing relationship with growers of high quality fruit, whose groves are strategically located from southern Kern County to Fresno County in the north. These grower relationships allow strategic marketing of the sweetest, best quality fruit throughout the year. Most weather related harvest problems are avoided by having a selection of groves in a wide range of locations. Because there are multiple varieties grafted on many different rootstocks and planted in different soil types, Suntreat assures that the best fruit is available throughout the year.

The Suntreat packing facility is state of the art, with major equipment upgrades that have been accomplished over the past two seasons.

Traceability: As fruit is received at the packing plant, a barcode on each bin of fruit is scanned into the computer system. This allows the fruit to be tracked precisely through the packing process until a grower code is printed on each packed carton. This system traces back to the specific grove, so that upon arrival at the buyer’s location, any issues can be directed specifically to the exact location the fruit came from.

Automated electronic grading machines have also been installed in each of the packing plants, which allows more consistency in the grading process. The result has been praise from buyers on a more consistent grade of the final product.

These new systems have been tied together with a new computer operating system giving faster access to pack results and an improved reporting format that enables better harvest, pack and market decisions.