FAQ

We're so glad that you are interested in working with us! We maintain current job openings at https://www.hmcfarms.com/jobs/ . If you don't see a job that interests you, please send a resume to hmcfarms@gmail.com.

Our main office is in Kingsburg, Ca, in the heart of California's Central San Joaquin Valley. Our farms and packing houses are all close by.

No. Our varieties are developed through selective breeding, not by specific changes introduced into their DNA by genetic engineering techniques.

Traver Ranch is one of our farms, located a few miles from our main office in Traver, California. The fruit we grow on that farm gets a Traver Ranch sticker and box, but is still part of HMC Farms.

Yes! As the consumer demand has grown for organic fruit, we have increased our organic production.

The sticker on your fruit is called PLU (Product Look-Up). It is intended to the aid in the ease of pricing and checkout at grocery stores. To find out what the number on your sticker means, check the International Federation for Produce Standards website here: https://www.ifpsglobal.com/Identification/PLU-Codes/PLU-codes-Search

Not at all.

Grape Escape is fresh grapes off the stem, washed and ready to eat. Grape Escape is washed only with water so that all you taste is the fresh flavor of grapes.

All varieties are chosen based on three categories. The first and most important is flavor/taste. The second is timing and the third is fruitfulness and sizing. Sometimes varieties are purchased from a nursery, and other times we have discovered that a tree has started producing a different piece of fruit which can then be grafted onto a rootstock or under-performing variety.

We have a close relationship with local food banks, and donate thousands of pounds a year to the Farm to Family program, which reduces waste on our part while helping to feed healthy food to hungry families. We also send some of our imperfect fruit to dairy feed and mulch locations.

We do not, in fact we do just the opposite. Every year we take samples of the ground to study which nutrients may have been lost, then we add them back into the soil in the early winter months. Minerals added usually include calcium, nitrogen, zinc, iron, magnesium, and boron.

Chill hours are a resting time for the tree during the winter months. Every winter each tree must receive anywhere from 800 to 1000 chill hours. Chill hours are the number of hours 45 degrees and less between November 1st and February 28th.

The white on the pit is called callus. These are undifferentiated cells that occur when the pit separates from the walls. This is completely normal and in no way harmful. If you see this white buildup on your pit or the flesh that was connected to the pit, please feel free to eat and enjoy.

We are currently working on an efficient way to sell fruit directly to consumers.

EU is the abbreviation for the French translation for the United States. Fruit shipped to Canada is required to have all English words translated to French. Rather than have two different stickers, we have French and English on every PLU sticker.

We coat some of our fruit with a food grade wax to protect it during shipping and maintain freshness. It is not harmful, and can usually be removed mostly with a dry paper towel.

Hydrocooling is the process of taking the field heat out of the fruit after harvest before packing. It allows pickers to harvest fruit at a riper stage than fruit that is packed without hydrocooling. Our summer temperatures can hover around 100 degrees, so it is important to bring down the temperature of the fruit to around 58 degrees before packing. We only cool to 58 degrees because it was discovered that temperatures below 58 can lead to staining and splitting in tree fruit.