Western Canning Company (Now Pixar Animation Studios)

In 1919, Chinese investors built Western Canning Co. at 1250 Park Avenue. It was a network of brick buildings that stretched several blocks from Emery Street all the way to Hollis.

Considered a modern plant by the standards of the era, the 5-acre facility had an employee cafeteria, locker room, a medical station and a nursery.

This plant was the largest cannery in California. As many as 1,500 employees worked 12 hour shifts, operating 24 hours a day during the canning season.

In 1921, Western Canning was purchased for $1 million by Virden Packing Co. In 1927 the plant was sold once again to the California Packing Co. (CPC). It was thereafter known as Plant No. 35, one of the many Del Monte plants in the Bay Area.

CPC, which marketed under the Del Monte label, canned millions of cases of cherries, pears, apricots, tomatoes, and peaches in these vast buildings.

Work at the plant was segregated by gender. Female employees were involved in the canning process, while the male employees maintained the machinery. Female employees wore white uniforms resembling a nurse with a hat to cover their hair.

Working conditions were less than ideal. Female employees, after handling fruit and submerging their hands in water all day, often had the experience of skin sloughing off on their fingers. The grueling work often required being on one’s feet for 12 hours a day.

Plant No. 35 provided a vital service during World War II by producing an immense quantity of canned goods for both the home front and the armed forces. CPC was officially renamed Del Monte in1967.

The rising popularity of frozen foods in the 1960s caused a decline in canned food sales. Many of California’s urban canneries became obsolete and were forced to close. When the gates of Plant No. 35 closed in 1989, it was the last cannery operating in the Bay Area.

The plant was razed in 1992 and briefly considered by Kaiser to relocate their Oakland Hospital before being acquired by Pixar who had outgrown their Richmond studio.

Pixar is now the city’s largest employer with over 1,000 employees.