Oregon Cherry Growers Awarded

Oregon Cherry Growers Awarded

Oregon Cherry Growers Awarded. I'm Greg Martin with today's Fruit Grower Report.

You might think that all dried fruit is the same but according to Tim Ramsey, Oregon Cherry Growers President & CEO there was a lot of thought given to this idea.

RAMSEY: The majority of our business is in processed cherries and so that's everything from a maraschino cherry and things that we have been doing for many, many years and asa that category has somewhat plateaued and like other commodities becomes very price sensitive we're looking for other new categories, new products to to develop to utilize that fruit.

They found a hole in the marketplace for consistent dried fruit including strawberries, blueberries and cherries in the baking industry.

RAMSEY: A lot times when they develop a recipe and it calls for dried fruit they're really just grabbing dried fruit off the shelf. So we said, wait a minute. If you are making the best scone or muffin, nutrition bar with dried cherries or dried fruit in it the moisture level of those things when they get done baking is completely different. We worked with commercial bakeries trying to find out for all the different fruits what is the correct moisture level.

They came up with the new, innovative Royal Harvest™ branded line of dried fruits.

RAMSEY: It's called the Ultimate Ingredient fruit, dried fruit, really targeted for the bakery industry and the food service industry and a t the end of the day that value for that fruit done correctly, priced correctly, packaged correctly can return a higher value back to our grower/owner than perhaps a maraschino could.

That's today's Fruit Grower Report. I'm Greg Martin on the Ag Information Network of the West.

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