Costs of Packing Michigan Peaches in 1957

Excerpts from the report Introduction: This report is concerned with the costs of packing peaches in the principal producing area of southwest Michigan. It is a part of a continuing study of marketing practices designed to improve efficiency and lower costs. In this report peach packing costs are presented for two types of packing sheds--farm and central sheds. Farm sheds (the smaller sheds) handled fruit of one grower and were usually located on the farm of the owner. Central sheds (the larger sheds) handled fruit of many growers and were located in small cities. Previous studies have indicated that large, well-managed packing sheds generally have, lower costs than well-managed smaller sheds because they can use more labor saving machinery, have more efficient utilization of labor, buy supplies in large quantities, and can spread overhead costs over a greater volume of output. Under actual operating conditions in 1957, the central sheds were operating under their full packing capacity to such an extent that their costs were considerably higher than they would have been at capacity operation. Farm sheds, on the other hand, made greater use of their existing packing capacity and, thereby, were able to keep costs down.