Name: 美國最大的大蒜生產商如何在美國大蒜的衰落中生存下來？ (How The US' Biggest Garlic Producer Survived The Fall Of American Garlic | Big Business)
Uploaded: 2025-03-28T23:38:06.000Z
Duration: 21 min 51 s

Christopher Ranch processes about 12 billion cloves of garlic a year, making it the biggest producer in the United States.

克里斯托弗牧場每年加工約 120 億瓣大蒜，是美國最大的大蒜生產商。

Workers clean, peel, and pack all of it at this massive warehouse in Gilroy, California.

在加利福尼亞州吉爾羅伊的這個大型倉庫裡，工人們對所有產品進行清洗、剝皮和包裝。

進階被動語態

As you can see, there's not a vampire to be seen.

正如你所看到的，這裡一個吸血鬼也沒有。

Garlic ripens once a year, and rots fast, so workers have just a few weeks to dig it all up.

大蒜一年一熟，腐爛速度快，所以工人們只有幾周時間來挖光。

When it comes to garlic, we have one shop, and that's all going to be done by hand.

說到大蒜，我們只有一家店，而且都是手工製作。

The company is one of the last U.S. garlic producers.

該公司是美國最後的大蒜生產商之一。

Most shut down when cheaper Chinese garlic began flooding the market in the 1990s.

20 世紀 90 年代，當更便宜的中國大蒜開始湧入市場時，大部分大蒜種植園都關閉了。

So how has Christopher Ranch survived the influx of imported, cheap garlic?

那麼，克里斯托弗牧場是如何在大量進口廉價大蒜的衝擊下生存下來的呢？

And how did it help turn what was once considered a niche ingredient into one of the most popular vegetables in the U.S.?

它又是如何將曾經被視為小眾食材的蔬菜變成美國最受歡迎的蔬菜之一的呢？

Christopher Ranch produces more than half of all garlic grown in the United States.

克里斯托弗牧場生產的大蒜佔美國大蒜種植總量的一半以上。

Here, its crops span an area about half the size of Manhattan.

在這裡，作物種植面積約為曼哈頓的一半。

In other words, one billion bulbs of garlic.

That's Ken Christopher, grandson of the original Christopher, who gave the ranch its name in 1956, when he first started growing garlic on just 10 acres.

這就是肯-克里斯托弗，他是克里斯托弗的孫子，1956 年，他首次開始在僅有的 10 英畝土地上種植大蒜，牧場的名字就是他起的。

It's essentially a clone of itself year after year.

年復一年，它基本上就是自己的克隆版。

You're going to be guaranteed to have the same flavor profile throughout the decades.

這樣就能保證在幾十年的時間裡都有相同的風味。

And so today, we can enjoy the same Italian, bold, zesty flavor that my grandfather first selected 60 years ago.

是以，今天我們可以品嚐到我祖父 60 年前首次選擇的同樣的意大利風味、粗獷和辛辣。

他們在 11 月種下了所有的植物。

Bulbs grow underground over the span of nine months.

球莖在地下生長的時間跨度為九個月。

Once they're ready, farmers have about a month to dig everything up by hand.

一旦準備就緒，農民們大約有一個月的時間用手挖出所有東西。

Machines would rip the garlic's thin layers of skin, making it harder to sell and quicker to rot.

機器會撕破大蒜的薄皮，使其更難出售，更快腐爛。

The hand selection process remains the best.

So the company hires an extra 3,000 workers for just those few months.

是以，僅在這幾個月裡，公司就額外僱傭了 3000 名工人。

American farmers often struggle to recruit people for this work, so the ranch hires workers from Mexico on temporary agricultural visas.

美國農場主通常很難招到人從事這項工作，是以牧場用臨時農業簽證從墨西哥僱傭工人。

One problem you're going to find with a lot of farmers in this area is labor.

在這個地區，很多農民都會遇到一個問題，那就是勞動力問題。

How can we possibly get enough people to produce the food that Americans eat?

我們怎麼可能有足夠的人來生產美國人吃的食物？

And it takes hundreds more hands at giant warehouses like these to get produce like garlic store-ready.

在這樣的巨型倉庫裡，還需要數百雙手才能將大蒜等農產品儲存起來。

It's critical to get it into one of these rooms as fast as we can.

我們必須儘快把它送進這些房間裡。

他們把它從欄杆上弄下來了嗎？

Each one of our 100 million pounds, wherever they're grown in California, all come home to here.

我們的每一億磅產品，無論生長在加州的哪個地方，都會回到這裡。

Workers wheel it all in, in these 2,000 pound bins.

工人們把這些東西都裝進重達 2000 磅的箱子裡。

Heat loosens up the skins so these scraps can fall off.

加熱可使表皮鬆動，從而使這些碎屑脫落。

Then the garlic goes onto this conveyor belt.

然後，大蒜就會進入這條傳送帶。

Because garlic is a root crop, sometimes you're going to have some staining all around the skins and it's our job to make it give that perfect appearance that you're used to at the market.

由於大蒜是根莖作物，有時會在表皮周圍出現一些汙漬，我們的工作就是讓它呈現出您在市場上習慣的完美外觀。

Ken runs sales for the ranch and checks that all the bulbs look package pretty.

肯負責牧場的銷售，並檢查所有燈泡的包裝是否漂亮。

The crew's job is to go through and physically clean every single one of these bulbs.

工作人員的工作就是檢查和清理每一個燈泡。

Every day, workers inspect about 200,000 pounds worth.

每天，工人們要檢查價值約 20 萬英鎊的物品。

Then machines sort the bulbs into seven groups, depending on their size.

然後，機器根據燈泡的大小將其抽成七組。

The smallest bulbs fall through these tight chains.

最小的燈泡也會從這些緊密的鏈條中掉落。

As the links get bigger, they let in bigger bulbs.

當鏈接變大時，它們會讓更大的燈泡進入。

You're going to have the largest bulbs coming here on the left lanes, and if we go to the middle lanes, we'll have the middle-sized bulbs, and on the far right, we're going to have the smallest bulbs that we're going to pack for our customers.

最大的燈泡在左邊車道，中間車道是中等大小的燈泡，最右邊是最小的燈泡，我們將為客戶包裝這些燈泡。

They're easier to chop into finer pieces and give chefs more control over how garlicky their food tastes.

它們更容易切得更細，讓廚師更容易控制食物的蒜味。

Different customers require different kinds of garlic.

不同的客戶需要不同種類的大蒜。

Some customers want smaller bulbs and sleeves.

有些客戶需要較小的燈泡和套管。

Some customers want garlic in display trays.

有些客戶希望把大蒜放在展示盤裡。

Some customers want their garlic in 30-pound boxes.

有些客戶想要 30 磅一箱的大蒜。

But only the smoothest, cleanest bulbs will make it into the shipments that leave this warehouse.

但是，只有最光滑、最乾淨的燈泡才能運出倉庫。

Christopher Ranch says that's only about 60% of all the garlic they harvest.

克里斯托弗牧場說，這隻佔他們收穫的所有大蒜的 60%左右。

The rest will get processed in another room, but we'll get back to that.

其餘的將在另一個房間處理，但我們會再談這個問題。

Another crew checks for any lingering dirty skin that might make the bulbs less valuable.

另一名工作人員檢查是否有殘留的髒皮，以免降低燈泡的價值。

And then essentially the final part is they're just cleaning it and it goes into a box.

最後，他們會把它清洗乾淨，然後放進一個盒子裡。

And this is going to be found at retailers starting next week.

從下週開始，零售商就可以買到這款產品了。

About 5% of the garlic Christopher Ranch produces leaves the country, going to Canada, Japan,

克里斯托弗牧場生產的大蒜約有 5%銷往加拿大和日本、

Our business models split into retail, food service and industrial.

我們的業務模式分為零售、餐飲和工業。

The company ships these boxes off to major chains like Costco, Kroger, Trader Joe's and

該公司將這些包裝盒運往好市多 (Costco)、克羅格 (Kroger)、喬氏超市 (Trader Joe's) 等大型連鎖店。

In some of our relationships with companies like Blue Apron, they've mentioned that garlic is the one constant they have in every single box of product they ship out nationwide.

在我們與 Blue Apron 等公司的合作中，他們提到大蒜是他們在全國範圍內發貨的每一箱產品中不變的東西。

On a typical day, they'll fill seven semi-trucks with garlic.

通常一天，他們會用七輛半卡車裝滿大蒜。

Things were different when Ken's grandfather started the company in 1956, when he only sold to a produce market in San Francisco.

Ken 的祖父在 1956 年創辦公司時，情況有所不同，當時他只向舊金山的一個農產品市場銷售產品。

When he started, he was almost a joke in town.

剛開始的時候，他在鎮上幾乎是個笑話。

Garlic was very much a niche crop, a niche vegetable.

大蒜在很大程度上是一種小眾作物，一種小眾蔬菜。

The kind of garlic that's popular in the U.S. today was brought over by Spanish explorers in the 1500s.

今天在美國流行的這種大蒜是 15 世紀由西班牙探險家帶來的。

But it wasn't until Italian immigrants came to California in the late 1800s that the crop found its home in Gilroy.

但直到 19 世紀末意大利移民來到加利福尼亞，這種作物才在吉爾羅伊找到了自己的家園。

Well into the 1950s, it was mostly popular among immigrant communities that faced discrimination.

直到 20 世紀 50 年代，它還主要在面臨歧視的移民社區中流行。

Only niche markets carried the vegetable, and it stayed out of the mainstream for decades.

只有小眾市場上才有這種蔬菜，幾十年來它一直沒有進入主流市場。

Things started to change in the late 80s, when American scientists confirmed the ingredient was really good for you.

上世紀 80 年代末，當美國科學家證實這種成分確實對人體有益時，情況開始發生變化。

It contains a natural antibiotic called allicin, which can help prevent blood clots.

它含有一種名為大蒜素的天然抗生素，有助於預防血栓。

Garlic became newsworthy, and its popularity continued to grow.

大蒜成為了新聞，其受歡迎程度不斷提高。

So you take a whole garlic head like that, and you know it takes a long time to take each clove off and peel it.

所以，你要像這樣拿一整個蒜頭，你知道，把每一瓣蒜剝下來要花很長時間。

America's gotten a whole lot more diverse.

So as America's cultural palates become more diverse, garlic's moved from being very side plate to being center plate.

是以，隨著美國人的文化口味越來越多樣化，大蒜也從原來的配菜變成了主菜。

In the 1990s, garlic finally became one of the most produced crops in America.

20 世紀 90 年代，大蒜終於成為美國產量最高的作物之一。

The only problem was that the white skins stain easily, so a lot of it was hard to sell because Americans wouldn't buy bulbs that didn't look perfect.

唯一的問題是白皮很容易染色，所以很多白皮燈泡很難賣出去，因為美國人不會買看起來不完美的燈泡。

That's where Ken's grandfather Don saw an opportunity.

就在這時，Ken 的祖父 Don 看到了商機。

Because garlic is so time and labor intensive to grow, we want to find a home for every single pound.

由於種植大蒜非常耗時耗力，我們希望為每一磅大蒜找到一個歸宿。

Christopher Ranch was the first company in America to sell the crop peeled.

克里斯托弗牧場是美國第一家出售去皮作物的公司。

They invented this machine that could peel hundreds of cloves in minutes, and produce garlic Americans were willing to pay 50% more for.

他們發明了這種機器，可以在幾分鐘內剝出數百個蒜瓣，生產出的大蒜美國人願意多付 50%的價格。

It gave the ranch an edge over its American competitors.

它使牧場比美國競爭對手更具優勢。

Within the first few years, peeled garlic accounted for 10% of Christopher Ranch's revenue.

最初幾年，剝皮大蒜佔克里斯托弗牧場收入的 10%。

Today, their machines peel more than a million pounds of garlic every week.

如今，他們的機器每週要剝 100 多萬磅大蒜。

First, the bruised up bulbs go into these giant drums, called crackers, which use rubber rollers to break them down into cloves.

首先，將弄傷的球莖放入這些被稱為 "裂縫 "的巨型滾筒中，滾筒使用橡膠輥將球莖破碎成丁香。

Then a 60-person crew sorts them again, chucking out the completely rotten ones.

然後，由 60 人組成的工作人員再次對它們進行分揀，把完全腐爛的扔掉。

Giant machines portion the cloves into cups, and blast them with compressed air.

巨大的機器將丁香分裝到杯子裡，然後用壓縮空氣吹乾。

Most peelers do that at around 116 pounds per square inch.

大多數去皮機的去皮速度約為每平方英寸 116 磅。

That's about three to four times the air pressure of a car tire.

這大約是汽車輪胎氣壓的三到四倍。

Machines whip the garlic around at 1,200 revolutions per minute, and those stubborn shells fly right off.

機器以每分鐘 1200 轉的速度攪動大蒜，那些頑固的蒜殼就會立刻飛走。

They upgrade their machines every few years.

Their newest one can peel 100,000 pounds of garlic in an eight-hour shift.

他們最新的一臺設備可以在 8 小時的工作時間內剝 10 萬磅大蒜。

These computers can identify which cloves are going to be OK for our final pack.

這些計算機可以識別哪些丁香可以用於我們的最終包裝。

They're going to identify where the gross defects are.

他們將確定哪些地方存在嚴重缺陷。

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美國最大的大蒜生產商如何在美國大蒜的衰落中生存下來？ (How The US' Biggest Garlic Producer Survived The Fall Of American Garlic | Big Business)

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