Doing Business / Food : Knott’s Plant in Placentia Really Jams

A half century ago, Cordelia Knott spooned her boysenberry preserves into glass jars and sold them to eager customers. Today, giant machines carry on the process at the Knott’s Berry Farm Foods plant in Placentia.

The plant employs between 200 and 400 workers depending on the season. Some of the berries are grown on Knott’s own farm--in Riverbank, Calif., not the theme park in Buena Park. Others are bought from growers.

The plant--on Boysenberry Lane, naturally--produces everything from syrups to salad dressings in huge vats. The batches are mixed on the second floor of the plant, then fed through tubes for bottling on the first floor. Each batch is carefully monitored, with samples tested for flavor and quality both at the time they are mixed and two days afterward, Knott’s officials say.

After mixing, the products are bottled, capped, labeled and packaged. They are then stored in a 100,000-square-foot warehouse until trucks come to pick them up for delivery to supermarkets and specialty stores.