In 1933, Japanese tenant farmers and Latino farm laborers in El Monte staged one of the era's notable agricultural strikes, a moment that captured just how central berry farming was to the local economy at the time. That farm-labor history traces back further still: Southern Pacific's rail depot, built in 1873, is credited with stimulating the growth of local agriculture in what's now the San Gabriel Valley, turning El Monte into a working farm community decades before Los Angeles County's suburbs reached this far east. Fast-turnover crops like berries needed packaging automation that could move product before it spoiled, the same problem PLAN IT's equipment solves today, just at modern speed instead of by hand-packed crate.

El Monte's economy has shifted since. The city now sits inside the dense light-industrial and logistics corridor that runs through the LA basin, with a population density above 11,000 people per square mile packed alongside warehouses and distribution operations rather than farmland. A corporate finance center also operates in the city, one sign of the broader commercial base that has grown up around the old agricultural core. You keep the produce and prepared-food moving through this San Gabriel Valley corridor; we handle getting it packed and out the door. Mars Series VFFS baggers from PLAN IT bag produce, snacks, and prepared foods for the warehousing and co-packing operations running in this corridor, and automatic case packers and case erectors finish that product into shipping cases without adding labor to a warehouse floor, all without PLAN IT keeping staff stationed in El Monte itself. Check the California location page and food and beverage industry page for the wider region, the VFFS machine category and automatic case packer lineup for the machines themselves, and our solutions page for everything else San Gabriel Valley producers and distributors might need.