Adding Cherries To The Mix

Adding Cherries To The Mix. I’m Greg Martin with today’s Line On Agriculture.

Combining foods has long been a part of the culinary world. When Ray Pleva, CEO and Chairman of Pleva International, combined tart cherries with hamburger and sausage in his butcher shop little did he know that he was doing something that would enhance and improve not only the product but the consumers. It’s a product he calls BLENDit.

PLEVA: The BLENDit is the formulation of putting it into the burger or into developing like our Italian cherry sausage or our Polish sausage or chorizo pork sausage.

In mentioning the idea to some friends and family the first reaction is not really a positive one as they cannot imagine some cherry flavored hamburger but in reality the meat does not take on the cherry flavor and the benefits to adding the tart cherries which are loaded with antioxidants is huge.

PLEVA: On the fresh side it doubles the shelf life. Our cherry pecan sausage was the first product we made and if we had 20 customers come into the store regardless of where they’re from, 18 out of 20 would buy that sausage.

Cindy Pleva-Weber is the Chief Information Officer for the company and she talks more about the taste.

PLEVA-WEBER: I always think of it as it’s like adding eggs to a cake mix. You don’t taste the eggs in the cake mix but you couldn’t make it without it. That’s kind of how this is. Once you’ve had it in taco meat. Once you’ve had it - a meatball is 10 times more tender with the BLENDit in it. Pizza toppings are 10 times more tender and less greasy and fatty.

Even with a lot of media attention there are still a lot of people who have never heard of the product even after nearly 15 years. Dave Mathia, Chief Operating Officer and President, talks about the next step.

MATHIA: Where we’re going next is to take the BLENDit to the national level with the major processors, retailers, fast food, whoever is going to take this on first in mass quantities, in the millions of pounds. And the reason being is that with the inclusion on the market, I’m not going to mention its name right now, it has not been favorable to the public, we are equal to or could be more cost effective than that from an economic standpoint. And then we’re bringing the nutrition on top of that. No one has sold anything with an inclusion or not that makes hamburger more nutritious and that’s the biggest thing that we bring to the table here.

For more information visit plevainternational.com.

That’s today’s Line On Agriculture. I’m Greg Martin on the Ag Information Network.