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CapitalPress.com
August 5, 2016
Grower pushes premium sweet corn
By DAN WHEAT
Capital Press
EPHRATA, Wash. —
“Quincy sweet corn” is what
people ask for in northcentral
Washington state.
But the buzz may be chang-
ing to “Kallstrom sweet corn”
as more people taste what
Ephrata grower Mark Kall-
strom calls the “Cadillac of
corn.”
It’s so sweet and holds its
sweetness longer than most
corn that Kallstrom says a cus-
tomer at the Issaquah farmers’
market in Western Washington
has told him he sucks the juice
from the cob after eating the
kernels.
“It’s a premium corn and
our advantage over grocery
stores is that we offer it fresh
every day. The quality is up
there. When we run out, peo-
ple cry. I’m not exaggerating,”
says Kallstrom, 61, who stag-
gers the planting of 100 acres
so he has ripe fresh corn dai-
ly from the Fourth of July to
mid-October.
Employees sell it from his
lat bed trucks and wagons at
Dan Wheat/Capital Press
Mark and Uriah Kallstrom, father and son, enjoy a taste of their
sweet corn fresh in the ield south of Ephrata, Wash., on July 28.
They are in their seventh year of fresh market sales.
roadside locations in Ephra-
ta, Moses Lake, Quincy and
Wenatchee. They’re hard to
miss with large yellow signs
that say “Corn” and have a
large letter “K” for Kallstrom.
It’s $8 per dozen and $20
per box of 40 ears, which is
higher than the price of other
sweet corn in stores. Kallstrom
says he charges more for his
high quality. The variety is
SH2 and it’s non-GMO, which
seems to be a seller, he says. In
his seventh year of production,
he’s hopeful of a bright future.
He also sells it whole-
sale to other produce stands
and grocery stores in north-
central Washington and sells
it directly at farmers’ mar-
kets in Issaquah, Ellensburg,
Wenatchee, Leavenworth, Mo-
ses Lake and Moscow, Idaho.
“We live, eat, smell and
drink corn. I love it!” Kall-
strom says with a big smile.
It’s a family affair. His wife,
Elaine, and their son, Uriah,
22, are heavily involved. Some
of their older children were in-
volved until other occupations
beckoned.
Young people from their
church, Faith Community
Church in Quincy, hire on to
sort corn by hand and school
teachers ind sales jobs a good
it.
Kallstrom and his son start
the day early using a specialty
combine for the least damage
to ears in harvesting the day’s
need.
Kallstrom’s father, Glenn,
was a dairyman who moved
from Port Orchard to Ephrata
in 1969. The family sold their
Ephrata dairy in 2007 and fo-
cused on potatoes, wheat, al-
falfa, corn silage, grain corn
and earlage.
In 2008, they raised 300
acres of sweet corn for frozen
processing because canners
were short.
“The next year, the canners
had more than they needed, so
I decided to raise it myself,”
Kallstrom said. “We planted
35 acres and hired a crew to
pick it by hand.”
Albany cold storage plant completes expansion
By ERIC MORTENSON
Capital Press
tomers ranging from craft
breweries to ice cream and
dessert makers. The com-
pany has the capability to
store food at temperatures
ranging from minus-20 de-
grees to 70 degrees.
The new warehouse in-
cludes 8,500 square feet
of processing space that
gives customers room for
value-added work such as
repacking, wet packing
and fresh fruit handling. In
a news release, company
CEO Jason Lafferty said
that including processing
space with the warehouse
gives SnoTemp “distinct
logistical and economic ef-
ficiencies that are critical to
sustaining success in today’s
market.”
The company expanded
its Albany plant by 100,000
square feet just six years ago,
and has doubled the combined
employment at its Albany and
Eugene facilities during that
time.
The expansion illustrates
the economic vitality of Or-
egon’s food processing sec-
tor, which grew even during
the depth of the recession.
A labor trends report issued
by the state Employment
Department in 2014 showed
that Oregon’s manufacturing
sector lost nearly 16 percent
of its jobs from 2007 to 2012.
But food manufacturing jobs
increased nearly 8 percent
during that same period.
SnoTemp is a third-gener-
ation family business.
On-line: www.SnoTemp.
com
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ALBANY, Ore. — Sno-
Temp Cold Storage opened a
new warehouse in July, mark-
ing the company’s eighth ex-
pansion since it began busi-
ness in Albany in 1974.
The company, found-
ed in Eugene, Ore., in 1957
and with its headquarters
still there, now has a total of
725,000 square feet of food
storage space between its two
facilities.
SnoTemp freezes and
stores bulk vegetables and
ingredients for repackers
such as NORPAC Foods
Inc., the farmers’ cooper-
ative, and for other cus-
Cattle on feed, placements, marketing
and other disappearances, June
(Feedlots with 1,000-head capacity or more)
Item
(1,000 head)
2015
2016
Placed on feed, June
Fed cattle marketed, June
Other disappearance, June*
1,481
1,747
69
Item
(1,000 head)
2015
2016
On feed July 1
10,236
Percent
change
1,525
1,912
61
3
9
-12
Percent
change
10,356
1
*Includes death loss, movement from feedlots to pasture, and shipments to other feedlots
for further feeding.
Source: USDA NASS
Capital Press graphic
June cattle placements
lower than expected
By CAROL RYAN DUMAS
Capital Press
The number of cattle going
into feedlots in June, up 3 per-
cent year over year, surprised
industry analysts, who fore-
cast an average increase of 6
percent based on an increased
supply of feeder cattle and rel-
atively lower prices for those
cattle.
Nonetheless, the 1.53 mil-
lion cattle placed is a good
number for June, and the
number on feed is going to
continue to grow, said John
Nalivka, owner of Sterling
Marketing in Vale, Ore.
“There’s going to be a rela-
tively large supply of cattle in
the second half of the year and
into next year,” he said.
Nalivka was not one of the
analysts looking for higher
placements, forecasting only
a 1 percent increase year over
year in June. May placements
were up 10 percent year over
year, and good pasture and
range conditions have produc-
ers hanging on to cattle a little
longer, he said.
Producers are also likely
not excited over prices, which
are half what they were two
years ago, he said.
On the lip side, while feed-
er cattle prices have declined,
they’re still not low enough to
give feedlots a healthy margin
despite low feed costs. The
feedlot industry lost about
$3.2 billion last year, basical-
ly 12 straight months of red
ink, he said.
“Some feedlots never real-
ly have gotten back into black
ink,” he said.
Relative to the market
out front, they’re still paying
too much for feeder cattle.
At about $143 per hundred-
weight, feeder prices are
about $10 per hundredweight
too high. Those prices have to
continue to come down to get
things in balance, he said.
“I’m not totally negative;
I’m just saying we need to
raise the caution lag,” he said.
Last year’s increased calf
crop, up 4 percent, is going
to end up in feedlots at some
point. And total meat supply
is increasing in the face of
somewhat questionable beef
demand, he said.
Beef production is ex-
pected to be up 4 percent to 5
percent this year on top of a 1
percent to 2 percent increase
on last year’s record pork pro-
duction and a 3 percent to 4
percent increase in poultry
production, he said.
USDA’s cattle on feed re-
port showed marketing of fed
cattle was up 9 percent in June
to 1.91 million and total cattle
on feed numbers stood at 10.4
million on July 1, an increase
of 1 percent year over year.
The report also showed
signs that herd rebuilding
could be slowing.
The number of heifers in
the feedlot mix was up 5 per-
cent year over year at 3.49
million head. The increase
follows a 4 percent year-over-
year jump in the number of
heifers in feedlots on April 1,
according to National Agri-
cultural Statistics Service.
“It’s a total turnaround
from where we’ve been with
heifers. We’ve gone from re-
building and breeding to put-
ting them on feed,” Nalivka
said.
Heifer slaughter was up
4.8 percent in June year over
year. Beef cow slaughter was
up 20.5 percent in June and
is up nearly 8 percent year to
date, NASS reported.
“I think we’re putting the
brakes on this growth,” Naliv-
ka said.
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