Baby Carrots

Mike Yurosek was a California farmer. When he harvested his vegetables, those that were not pretty enough could not be sold to the supermarkets. For example, every year, he threw away tons of vegetables that did not make the grade because they were lumpy or twisted. In some harvests, 70 percent of his carrots were tossed.

In 1986, Yurosek came up with a solution to his ugly carrot problem. He would cut off the lumps and bumps and twists. He was left with a perfect-looking mini-carrot just a few inches long, which he then peeled. After starting with a potato peeler and a paring knife, he found a used industrial green bean cutter that could cut the carrots into uniform 2-inch pieces. Then he took the cut-up carrots to an industrial potato peeler.

Yurosek sent some samples of his little carrots along with the regular load to one of his best customers, the Vons supermarket Los Angeles. The customers loved them and asked for only the baby carrots in the next shipment. Within a few years, more supermarkets started carrying Yurosek’s little carrots and the world of produce changed forever.