Stanislaus Food Products
Generation after generation, Stanislaus Food Products have prided themselves on packing the very best quality tomato products available. Through the years, the company has maintained that unwavering commitment to quality, in the belief that quality products attract quality customers.
The Stanislaus difference
"You can't make good wine from bad grapes."
Stanislaus is the only canner in California who pays growers cash premiums based on the canning quality of their tomatoes. Many years ago, Stanislaus developed their own unique, comprehensive quality measurements to evaluate every incoming load of fresh tomatoes coming from our growers' fields. This rigorous evaluation of quality determines how much the grower is paid for each load.
As a result of this "only-at-Stanislaus" program, the best growers in California want to grow tomatoes for us (because it's profitable for them!) while lesser-quality growers choose to grow for other canners with lower quality standards. It's the good old American incentive system at work—and it pays off in superior quality tomatoes!
"Creating the perfect flavor balance is an art."
In order to make superior tasting wine, a master vintner artfully blends grapes of different types to achieve the perfect "balance." At Stanislaus we take the same approach in making superior-tasting tomato products.
Stanislaus deliberately contracts for fresh tomatoes of different types to create a range of flavors, which they then artfully blend to achieve perfect "balance" and consistent fresh taste—can after can, day after day, year after year.
How do they do this? Well, Stanislaus has something that none of the other processors have—a Raw Product Lab which evaluates every load (the moment it arrives from the field) for key flavor characteristics. Using proprietary technology, Stanislaus artfully blend our fresh tomatoes to consistently achieve perfect flavor balance and "Real Italian" taste superiority!
"Packed from fresh tomatoes, never from concentrate."
Visitors to the state-of-the-art Modesto cannery during the summer harvest season are amazed at how fast everything moves—the people, the equipment, and especially the tomatoes.
It's a fast-flowing river of red tomatoes that runs 24 hours per day, seven days per week!
There's a very good reason why we move so quickly. Because we pack 100% of our products from fresh tomatoes, 100% of our annual production must be fresh-packed during the three-month vine-ripe season.
Of course, it would be cheaper (and easier!) to do it like the other guys and Re-Manufacture tomato products year-round from bulk industrial tomato concentrate and water—but Stanislaus does things differently! Their customers understand and are willing to pay for the extra effort and investment of fresh-packed tomato products. Their customers understand "Real Italian" taste and they know the only way to capture just-picked fresh tomato flavor is to rush the tomatoes straight from the field into the same can they open in their restaurant.
"Time and Temperature are the enemies of fresh tomato flavor."
It's a proven scientific fact that the longer a fresh tomato is cooked and or the higher the cooking temperature, the greater the flavor loss.
That's why Stanislaus is constantly minimizing cooking temperatures and can their tomatoes as fast as possible. That's why they continually invest in shaving a few more seconds off their already-quick heating times, and a few more degrees off their already-low temperatures. That's why Stanislaus is driven to constantly surpass their principal flavor competitor—themselves!
Since temperature is a key enemy of fresh tomato flavor, why do most tomato processors Re-Manufacture products, exposing them to 300-400% more time/temperature than the packed-from-fresh process?! Because it's cheaper, and because almost all their price-oriented competitors in America today are doing it!
What's the result? The absence of fresh flavor and a heavy over-cooked taste. (And in "fully prepared" products, an extra dose of spicing to cover-up the taste.) That's why Re-Manufactured tomato products sell for lower prices to food service operators more attuned to cost-per-case than the quality of the food they serve!
"Superior quality - all of the time."
Unlike the rest of the processed tomato industry which operates on the—"finished product"—quality control premise, Stanislaus believes ongoing "tuning" of their processing is the key to superior quality all the time!
That's why approximately 80% of their quality control efforts are concentrated on controlling quality while the product is being made, not after the fact.
By using in-line QC, Stanislaus can make tiny adjustments ("tuning") to ensure the end product is perfect, can after can. That's why they have three times as many quality control people as the other guys! And that's why tbey can back up our guarantee of "Superior Quality, All The Time!"
The Stanislaus philosophy
