Sunrise Fresh, based in California’s Central Valley wants to get dried cherries into consumers' hands.
“Dried fruit over the years has gotten a bad rap,” explained Jim Samuel, owner of Sunrise Fresh. He’s hoping to change that perception while promoting Sunrise Fresh’s all-natural, preservative-free dried dark sweet cherries you can eat straight from the bag.
Surplus Supply
The company, based in Linden, near Stockton, specializes in fresh cherries and it was an excess supply of the fruit that created their product.
“With fresh cherries you only use what we call number-one cherries, and in 2010 the cherry harvest was hampered with a lot of rain, which resulted in many number-two cherries. You can’t sell those, and not wanting to waste them, we dried them and created a new product in the making,” Samuel explained.
Cherries have a very short harvest period. As Samuel explained, “cherries are the last to bloom and the first to harvest, the only thing that’s consistent with the cherry harvest is the inconsistency.” Come May, when harvest starts, Samuel expects this year’s cherry crop to be strong.
“Fresh cherry supply looks good, we’ve had a good chilling period and rain when we’ve needed rain, I’m confident we’ll have a good crop,” he said.
Pitting Process
As for the dried fruit process, the most challenging aspect was developing a system to remove the pit, as their product is dried with the stem and pit intact and pit removal comes later.
“We are the only dried cherry company in the world that does it this way, and I needed a very good system for removing the pit. We developed one and I can sleep at night knowing people can enjoy a good, safe snack.”
The Sunrise Fresh dried cherries have no added sugar or preservatives, yielding a healthy, natural snack.
“Dried cherries are just like fresh ones; some are sweet, some are tart,” said Samuel. “We don’t add sugar and process them to taste all the same, so you get the same variety you taste eating fresh cherries, the difference is these ones are dried.”
Product Placement
The product can be found on Sunrise Fresh’s website and through Amazon. Raley’s grocery stores featured the product during the holidays and select grocery stores in California’s Central Valley are starting to carry the product year round. They are also exporting the product to Europe, Asia and Australia and hoping to get it into more grocery stores in the U.S.
For more information:
James R. Samuel
Sunrise Fresh
+1 209 932 0192