Plump, rough-skinned cantaloupes float in a cleansing bath, waiting to be placed in the peeler and then cut up by the workers gathered around a processing line. The fruit will then be put inside plastic containers to be heat sealed and labeled.
"The best quality way to cut fruit in many instances is by hand," explained Tom DeVries, vice president of prepared foods for Giant Eagle, as he led a tour of a new facility opened earlier this year by the O'Hara grocer.
In a 170,000-square-foot building in Freedom, Beaver County, Giant Eagle is experimenting with becoming its own food supplier — at least for certain products. The sprawling facility, formerly used by various food distributors, has plenty of empty, echoing space.
But about 70,000 square feet is in use, with almost half of that outfitted with the massive kitchen equipment needed to supply all of the grocer's 228 Giant Eagle stores and 160 GetGo convenience stores with pre-cut fresh fruit as well as to start taking over the job of supplying them with soups and certain prepared foods.
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