Growers Wary of New Corporate Entrant
Local fruit farmers in White Bluffs and Hanford demand financial vetting of Yakima-based Kopp Company before signing contracts.
The story, cleaned up
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Representatives of the Kopp Company, fruit buyers and shippers with headquarters in Yakima, held a meeting with a number of growers at the high school auditorium on Wednesday evening to discuss the proposition of that company entering this valley. The Kopp Company has been negotiating with the Wenatchee Valley Fruit Exchange for the purchase of the latter’s warehouses in White Bluffs and Hanford, and the meeting was held to ascertain what tonnage the company might expect if they decided to enter the field. Representatives of the company intimated they would like to have the growers tied up in fruit contracts, but they did not receive much encouragement from those present. At the close of the meeting, a committee composed of Edmund Anderson, John McFee, Ira Hawley, Robert Nitzsche, and G. C. Stoddard was appointed to look up the financial rating and general business standing of the company. This committee plans to go to Yakima Saturday to interview the head officials.
“The representatives of the company intimated that they would like to have the growers tied up in fruit contracts but they did not receive much encouragement along that line.”
Long before the area was transformed by the Hanford Nuclear Site, the economic lifeblood of White Bluffs was defined by fruit orchards and local autonomy. This 1923 dispute over corporate contracting shows the ongoing tension between regional growers and the outside capital interests seeking to control their supply chain.
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