The Raisin Cartels: A Desperate Brotherhood | 1

Business Wars

Wondery

History, Business, David Brown, Management

4.6 • 13.2K Ratings

🗓️ 20 November 2019

⏱️ 25 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

The humble raisin: it’s hard to imagine that dried grapes are at the center of one of the longest running business wars in the United States. But with almost all of the country’s raisins coming from a small area in California’s Central Valley, it is a brutal and cutthroat industry.

In the early 20th century a few wealthy raisin growers decided to form a collective called Sun-Maid. After the government mandated that 85% of growers join the collective, Sun-Maid executives used violence and intimidation to get farmers to join. The farmers who held out had little bargaining power and were forced to accept lower prices. But in the 1960s, the independent farmers banded together to fight back. They founded the Raisin Bargaining Association to negotiate higher prices, setting off a power struggle that would last for decades.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey, prime members, you can listen to business wars,
0:02.5	add free on Amazon music.
0:04.5	Download the app today.
0:06.5	One, two, one.
0:12.5	A note to listeners, this episode contains adult content.
0:19.5	It's June, 1923, Selma, California, the raisin capital of the world.
0:26.5	Rusty Eskenderian walks through his vineyards in the verdant San Joaquin Valley.
0:31.5	The sun has just dipped below the horizon, and it's getting dark.
0:35.5	Walking through the rows of grapes, he feels peaceful.
0:39.5	It's a far cry from the boisterous dinner table that awaits him at home.
0:45.5	Rusty is 30 years old, a small, unintimidating man with a boyish face.
0:51.5	But when provoked, a steely resolve takes hold, and an inner fierceness rises up.
0:57.5	Rusty likes handling the smooth green berries still warm from the sun.
1:02.5	They remind him of his home back in Armenia.
1:05.5	He and his parents fled years ago in 1912, getting out just before the genocide that killed his entire extended family.
1:13.5	Once in the United States, they moved to California, where they worked as field hands,
1:17.5	while they saved enough money to buy their own vineyard.
1:20.5	It took years.
1:22.5	Walking the rows still fills Rusty with pride.
1:26.5	Suddenly, a box truck turns into his row and skids to a stop, sending up a cloud of dust.
1:32.5	Adrenaline floods Rusty's body.
1:35.5	He searches for one of the wooden stakes they used to train the grapefines to defend himself, but the headlights blind him.
	...

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