Katie Hensley is a fourth-generation pickle processor; her great-grandfather, Wesley Swanson, founded Swanson Pickle Co., in Ravenna. The company grows pickles and brines them in massive fiberglass tanks.

"The size of our workforce very much changes as we go from around 80 employees during harvest to 20 employees during the winter," Hensley said. "We're shipping out every week of the year. We supply manufacturers with a product that goes directly out to their line, and into jars or into pouches where it gets the final flavor."

About half of Swanson's brined pickles supply the Kraft Heinz plant in Holland; the other half goes to TreeHouse Foods in Green Bay, Wis. A small amount of fresh produce is sold to customers for fresh pack applications. Very little of the crop is discarded, according to Hensley. That's because ugly pickles make a perfectly fine relish.

Most pickles you find in a grocery store are pasteurized, making the product shelf stable without refrigeration for up to two years. Exceptions include fermented pickles, which are soaked in barrels, often in strict accordance with recipes brought over from Europe by grandmothers like Lillie Topor. Refrigerated fresh-pack pickles are packed directly from the field with vinegar and spices and are then vacuum-sealed with no pasteurization. These varieties have a shorter shelf life than pasteurized pickles; fermented pickles are truly perishable, lasting only weeks or months, while refrigerated vinegar pickles can last 18 months.

Manufacturers that specialize in using fresh pickles, such as Topor's and McClure's Pickles LLC, cannot rely on Michigan growers year-round. They must follow the cucumber harvest south through the winter months, all the way to Mexico, to secure a constant supply of fresh cucumbers.

"We're not adding anything to extend the shelf life or make it crunchy other than the great quality fresh fruit that is the cucumber," said Bob McClure, co-founder of McClure's Pickles. "So we have to find a year-round supply. We have direct relationships with growers no matter where it's coming from because it's very important that we understand how and what they're producing for us so that we can get the best quality produce. Because you can't take a bad cucumber and make it into a good pickle."