Antique Bizarre 1930s-40s Sun‑Tint Plum Label 🌄 “Below Standard in Quality” Medford OR

Who Labels Their Own Plums Below Standard? 🌄 Antique 1930s-40s Sun-Tint Plum Label, Medford OR

Size: 7 1/4" x 6 1/2"

🤯 Maybe the strangest food label ever. A pretty orchard scene, a brand called Sun-Tint, and then a heavy ruled box right in the middle that says BELOW STANDARD IN QUALITY, GOOD FOOD - NOT HIGH GRADE. And here's the best part: they didn't have a choice. The government made them say it.

🔍 What's on it

SUN-TINT BRAND PURPLE PLUMS IN WATER, CONTENTS 6 LBS. 8 OZS., the boxed legend, and at the foot, PACKED BY ROGUE RIVER PACKING CORPORATION, MEDFORD, OREGON. In the middle is a Rogue Valley scene, orchards laid out under snow-capped mountains and a wide sky, inside a red scalloped frame, and down in the lower left corner there's a tiny printed D. The back is blank.

⚖️ Why It Says Below Standard

The 1938 Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act let the government set standards of quality for canned foods. A canner whose pack fell short of the standard could still sell it, but only if the label said so in plain words. The rule spelled out the exact words, "Below Standard in Quality" on the first line and "Good Food—Not High Grade" on the second, in bold condensed capitals, and they had to be boxed in with heavy printed lines forming a rectangle. That's the box on this label, word for word. The same rule is still on the books today.

So these plums were perfectly good to eat, maybe a little small or uneven or soft, just not up to the grade. And 6 pounds 8 ounces is a big No. 10 can, the kind that went to restaurants, cafeterias and institutions rather than the grocery shelf. Because the wording came out of the 1938 law, this label was printed in 1938 or later.

🌄 Medford and the Rogue Valley

Medford sits in the Rogue River Valley of southern Oregon, fruit country famous for its pears and orchards. It had its own canning story too. Frank L. Knight heard the best catsup tomatoes grew in the Rogue River Valley and opened a packing plant in Medford in 1916. By 1925 it was running 35 tons of tomatoes a day, in 1936 the modernized plant started bottling right in Medford, and Rogue River Catsup took 75 percent of the Portland market. By 1942 the packing company had dropped out of the local directories.

📏 Details

• Sun-Tint Brand Purple Plums can label, packed in Medford, Oregon
• The federal BELOW STANDARD IN QUALITY box, so 1938 or later
• About 7 1/4" x 6 1/2", unused, never applied to a can
• You'll get one label like the ones shown

🖼️ Hang this in a kitchen, bar, grocery, or cafe and watch people stop to read it out loud. Perfect for anyone who loves weird advertising, food history, or Oregon history, and it's a great story to tell when somebody asks about it.