noun. pack·​ing·​house ˈpa-kiŋ-ˌhau̇s. : an establishment for slaughtering livestock and processing and packing meat, meat products, and by-products. also : one for processing and packing other foodstuffs.

The packinghouse operations usually include washing, pre‐cooling, trimming, waxing, sorting/grading, vapor treatment, irradiation, chemical treatment etc. Not all crops require all stages of these packing operations, while some crops may need more operations to maintain good quality.

The main functions of the packing house are: to separate the fruit to be sold fresh from the fruit to be processed, to degreen, clean, wash, disinfect, wax, sort, mark, package, and finally, to prepare the fruit for storage and transport.

The Anaheim Packing House was originally built as a Sunkist citrus packing house and is one of the few remaining buildings from the agricultural Packing House era. Built in 1919, the Mission Revival packing house was used to wash, grade, and pack citrus prior to being transported across the Country.