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Sultana Drying

Loading perforated dipping buckets of sultanas on to a dipping frame on the back of a truck on the Fenwick property at Berri circa 1950. In this process 75-100 buckets of fruit at a time were immersed for half to one minute in a cold dip solution contained in a concrete, above ground tank, using a gantry and windlass.

Bulk dipping greatly speeded up the dipping operation where previously buckets were dipped 12 at a time or singly. In the 70s bulk dipping was superseded by rack spraying of fruit with cold dip solution and more recently the adoption of trellis drying. For a number of reasons mostly associated with marketing, the production of dried sultanas had all but ceased in SA by the year 2000.

(Source: John Steed)