Beans, Pimentos, and Plums: Tales of a Long-Gone Food Factory Near Downtown Phoenix
Using the phrase “food processing” around Downtown Phoenix might lead people to think of celebrity chefs preparing delicacies at fashionable restaurants. But historically, that term sometimes carried a more industrial connotation.
Local food processing included the well-known citrus warehouses south of the railroad tracks and the Arizona Canning Co., a rectangular warehouse with an office on the north side of the building situated west of Downtown on 2.5 acres at 300 South 25th Avenue.
Bill Baker was 18 when he started working there in 1951 under Mack Dunham, the manager, and stayed for about a year. He was one of approximately 10 employees, a mix of middle-aged men and women, whose main entertainment seemed to be going to the Phoenix Greyhound Park. Baker’s hourly wage doubled his previous 50-cent rate at a restaurant called The Eat’n Place on McDowell Road across from Good Samaritan Hospital.
“Using the Sun Vista label, we mostly canned pinto beans, some with meat and chili flavor, and some without, along with a few other common beans,” Baker says. "We once got some garbanzos from South Africa to can, and I was fascinated because they came from so far away.”
The empty cans were delivered via a railroad siding on the building’s south side. Other supplies were brought in on large trucks, and the men would unload them, carrying a 100-pound bag of beans on their shoulders into the factory. “I wasn’t very big, and my tracks looked like a snake trail as I wobbled from side to side, but I did my best,” Baker says.
The plant processed 70 tons of beans each month, with an average daily output of 800, 24-can cases or 19,200 cans, for distribution in six western states, according to an article in The Arizona Republic in 1949. Baker says the plant's most exotic canned items were pimentos and plums.
Baker describes the canning factory as a large building filled with rows of products awaiting shipment. “Inside were two large vats where beans were soaked overnight. The next morning, equipment moved the beans into empty cans on a conveyor belt that automatically filled them and placed lids on top.”
One of Baker’s tasks was to pick cans off the conveyor belt and place them in large, 3-foot-square baskets with wheels. “When the basket was full, it would be rolled into one of three or four huge retorts, kind of like a large pressure cooker, that would hold about five baskets or roughly 3,600 cans, and they would be cooked for an hour,” he says.
Female employees ran the kitchen, where sauces were made. “When we canned Chile con carne, most of us would roll ground beef into a ball and put it in each can, manually,” Baker says. “The sauce and seasoning were put in by the machinery.”
After cooking, workers would unload the baskets onto another conveyor belt that applied the labels. The last job was to put the labeled cans into boxes, another task done by women, and they were ready to ship out. “It was hot, back-breaking work, but also kind of fun,” Baker recalls.
James R. Bell purchased Arizona Canning Co. in 1945 and, four years later, established a new plant in the Elfrida-McNeal area of southeastern Arizona to process about 2,000 acres of green chili grown in the Sulphur Springs Valley.
The plant, now known as Fiesta Canning, continues to operate, producing Macayo’s Mexican food brands, as well as other labels. The company partners with Arizona Correctional Industries to employ inmates from its Douglas facility and has hired several after their release, according to https://aci.az.gov/casestudy/fiesta-canning-mcneal-az/.
Bell sold the Phoenix canning plant in 1951; it was later closed, and the building was demolished.
While Arizona Canning Co. is a long-gone part of the city, one aspect of Baker’s employment still feels relevant today. “I had a good friend around my age who lived next door to my parents’ house on Mojave Street south of Downtown Phoenix,” Baker says. “F.M. Seaman cooked the beans in the retorts after they were canned at the plant, and he helped me get the position.”
Connections still matter in the job market, whether you’re canning beans or counting them.
Douglas C. Towne is the editor of Arizona Contractor & Community magazine, www.arizcc.com