UPDATE: 6:30 p.m Despite BC Tree Fruits taking its meeting online, a large crowd of growers gathered at the Ramada Hotel Thursday night. Growers and farmers tell Castanet they felt the need to stick together after BC Tree Fruits announced it was closing its Kelowna/Lake Country packinghouse and moving operations to Oliver. “They only gave us five weeks,” said Gurjit Pabla, a farmer from Vernon. “The growers were never asked. This big decision … should be a general assembly, not just the managers.” Several farmers shared their concerns, addressing the crowd in both English and Punjabi. Kelowna Councilor Mohini Singh also addressed the crowd, addressing rumors that the City of Kelowna was not helping the packinghouse project. “On June 15, [Tree Fruits] The CEO and a senior executive from the packaging plant came and spoke to the mayor and city manager,” he said. “It was a much higher level discussion and he just said that they were actually looking at rebuilding, building a high-level technology facility and at no point was there a definitive question or a specific path forward as to what they were going to do.” Singh says the city has indicated it will do everything it can to support the industry and keep the packinghouse in the Central Okanagan. Hardev Aujla, a grower in Vernon, says it’s because of a lack of trust. “The board broke our trust, they betrayed us. We elected them and they represented us. The CEO released videos every week but never mentioned anything about this move.” In a video sent to the grower as a newsletter on May 6, BC Tree Fruits CEO and president Warren Sarafinchan promised the co-op will build a new facility on Old Vernon Road in Kelowna. “The rumor I’m hearing is that the co-op is not going to build the new facility on Old Vernon Road. I can tell you for sure that the new facility will be built on Old Vernon Road, so if you hear any of your neighbors or friends talking about the fact that the co-op is not going to be built on Old Vernon Road, I can tell you we are,” Sarafinchan said in the video. Aujla growers plan to start their own research on the matter. “We’re going to hire a lawyer and if we have to go to court, we’re going to go to court. We want to do it the way it is,” he said. ORIGINAL: 4:15 p.m A planned protest by farmers prior to a BC Tree Fruits grower meeting Thursday in Kelowna has resulted in that meeting being moved online. On August 17th, BC Tree Fruits announced that it will be closing its Kelowna/Lake Country packinghouse and shelving plans for a “super-plant” in the region. The group has announced that it will move its operations to its Oliver facility in the fall of 2022. Growers had planned to protest the decision before a grower meeting Thursday afternoon at the Kelowna Ramada Hotel. BC Tree Fruits CEO and president Warren Sarafinchan said in a press release Thursday afternoon that the grower meeting will now be held on Zoom, due to “security concerns” raised by the Ramada “due to potentially disruptive protest activity.” “Both the board and management are extremely disappointed to miss the opportunity to meet live and in person with our grower base and engage in meaningful and constructive dialogue about changes to our organization,” said Sarafinchan. A total of 95 workers at the Lake Country/Kelowna packing plant have received layoff notices as a result of the move, although they have been offered positions at the Oliver facility. Mike Mitchell, owner of B&T Orchards in Lake Country, says he was shocked to hear about the move. He and other co-op members say they were not consulted. “Growers need to be heard. They are the grower cooperative and all options need to be weighed. Growers are upset that they were not given comfort. They were caught off guard.” “Growers haven’t been given a clear picture of why beyond cost savings,” Michel added. Mitchell said the northern half of the Okanagan Valley produces about 70 percent of the cooperative’s apple capacity. “Growers’ fruit is going to go south…and transportation. You can’t haul apples when it’s 20 below and then all of a sudden the highway closes in Summerland and the food is frozen. The biggest concern for growers is the distance the fruit has to go through. The consumer wants a perfect apple. Every time an apple gets a little bruised, it costs growers money,” he said. The growers’ meeting was scheduled to take place at 6:30 p.m “We got the notice on the door that they canceled,” said Ramada Hotel Sales and Marketing Manager Maxine DeHart. The BC Tree Fruits Cooperative is made up of more than 270 local growing families who produce a variety of tree fruit products including apples, cherries, pears, peaches, nectarines, apricots, plums, plums and table grapes.
