My trip to visit this year’s Independent Processor of the Year, Dole & Bailey, also left me with an afternoon to walk part of the Freedom Trail. Viewing the graves of founding fathers like Samuel Adams and Paul Revere or walking where Ben Franklin walked is a day well spent for me. The picture below is me in Faneuil Hall, by one of the Dole & Bailey columns.
Many of the processors that I visit go back several generations, and they are well aware of their history, too. I’ve seen vintage pictures on the wall, antique processing equipment and old hand tools. I’ve seen early advertisements, company awards and yellowed newspaper clippings. More often than not, the production floors of these buildings are filled with automated equipment, and even the smallest of companies have added key technological advances here and there. Dole & Bailey represented to me a perfect modern-day multi-generational company: respectful of its past, but willing to adapt for the future.