Food travels further nowadays because of the centralization of production and distribution systems, but another reason for moving food around is cheap labor. A significant volume of Washington pears are exported to Thailand, where they are packaged in four-ounce individual-serving-size cups and shipped back to the United States by Dole Food Company, having made a round trip of over 15,000 miles. According to Jay Grandy, manager of the Washington-Oregon Canning Pear Association, between November 2004 and May 2005, Thailand was shipping on average 12 million four-ounce servings per month, or about 5 percent of total canned pear consumption in the […]