Lube the tomatoes, or else

b1-66er: 

https://youtu.be/ordThf9eDMA?si=wmO_3GvI2Z3QNPAy

b1-67er: Super odd. Tomato harvesting is  the hardest (and highest paid) work that I know of in California agriculture. Cannery tomatoes are harvested by machine exclusively. The value is absurdly low, when I was working on a tomato machine in 2013, the grower told me that the cannery guys get $80-$120  a ton!

66: Jesus•

67: So you have to plant it irrigate it, fertilize it, bug spray it, harvest it, and haul it about 30 miles to a packing plant for $100 a ton.

66: How about if you have slaves do it? [As the video implies.]

67: It seems like the last thing in the world the mob would be in.

Still cheaper to mechanically harvest I'd think. But it's a $400,000 machine.  It does the job of maybe 30 people with about 3.

There is just no money in it in the US.  Extremely low profits.

66: There must be somethin' else workin' here, then...

Pride?

Place?

Profits?

Name?

Reputation?

Italia uber alles?

67: In Italy I wonder if it's not some food/nationalism/pride thing.

Pirrissimo: The jerks do the same with olive oil

67: They actually cut the olive oil with other oils. Virtually none of the extra virgin olive oil from Italy is pure.

It's such a big problem that the USDA offers to test and certify your olive oil. Nobody does it.

P: Yep, I tell my daughter all the time, 'if you want real olive oil, buy Californian olive oil not Italian,' and it hurts my soul to have to tell her that. And it is so because of the fricken Mafia

D4rw1n: Wow so mysterious 

We have also been advised to get oil from California to make sure it's fresh and pure