Seasonal Orchard Jobs

You will be issued a picking harness to hold your bucket and allow you to pick hands free. Training on how to identify ripe cherries and pick them quickly without damaging them will be provided. We typically cluster pick cherries in bunches, but other techniques might also be asked of you.

We normally have 3 to 4 large teams of 40-50 pickers working together, known as "gangs". Any type of picking work can be quite physically demanding, it might take your body a couple of days to get used to the new movement. 

To be a picker you will need to use your ladder safely. Full training will be provided.

Our dozen cherry orchards are all located around Cromwell, mostly in the Parkburn Quarry and Mount Pisa area, there is also one in Bannockburn. We have one orchard in Queensbury which is a little further out of town, you will receive some paid travel time for working on this orchard. 

For your own convenience we recommend having your own transport or sharing with someone in your gang. We do provide shuttles for those who don't have transport although spaces are limited.  

Each picker is assigned a unique barcode. You have to make sure that your barcode is on all the buckets you picked as you get paid for each bucket.

All buckets with cherries get scanned into a field bin which is how we transport the cherries.

Bucket assistants move the full buckets to the end of the rows, where they get scanned into the field bins. Bucket Assistants and Quad Bike Drivers share the same position. They move the buckets down the rows of the orchard to the field bins and then move the field bins with a quad bike & trailer. 

Field Quality Controllers make sure that only the best cherries are picked for our customers.

Tractor Drivers move the field bins.

Bucket Assistants and Quad Bike Drivers share the same position. They move the buckets down the rows of the orchard to the field bins and then move the field bins with the quad bikes.