Sage Fruit partners with Chelan Fruit

Sage Fruit Co. will partner with Chelan Fruit beginning with the 2022 cherry season. Chelan Fruit joins the Sage Fruit family of grower-packer-shippers to enhance the marketing, sales and distribution of Washington-grown tree fruit. Through this new partnership, Sage Fruit will add considerable volume of conventional and organic apples, pears and cherries to their manifest.

“We are very happy to partner with Sage Fruit and look forward to working closely with their team to deliver high-quality, great tasting fruit to customers worldwide,” said Ed Johnson, Chelan Fruit’s CEO.

Chelan Fruit joins Sage Fruit’s four additional growing and packing operations from central Washington (Legacy Fruit, Valicoff Fruit, Olympic Fruit and Congdon Orchards). Each of Sage’s vertically integrated members are continuously adding acreage to their well-established farms, while also replanting current acreage with high-density, new-variety trees.

“We are excited by the opportunity to partner with Chelan Fruit,” said Steve Clement, CEO of Sage Fruit Co. “This partnership, with such an outstanding growing and packing operation, is an important step in our overall growth strategy. It enhances our ability to supply our customers with the best tasting, highest quality tree fruit Washington state has to offer, year-round.”

Chelan Fruit is a nearly 3,000-acre farming operation complete with its own packing and cold storage facilities and is one of Washington’s leading fruit producers. The additional acreage Chelan Fruit will be contributing spans the northern growing region of Washington state, which provides Sage Fruit with greater geographical diversification. As Chelan Fruit continues to grow, it will focus on planting further acreage of complementary products, providing a unique flavor experience and superior quality.

“We feel this is an excellent opportunity for our organization and we are thrilled to be able to supply our retail partners and foodservice customers with this high-quality fruit.  This additional volume of apples, pears and cherries will allow us to offer our partners increased volumes throughout the year, and in turn, better serve their consumers,” said Chuck Sinks, Sage Fruit’s president of sales and marketing.

Apples, cherries and pears in the US market | Volumes (Kg)

Source: USDA Market News via Agronometrics.
(Agronometrics users can view this chart with live updates here)

The News in Charts is a collection of stories from the industry complemented by charts from Agronometrics to help better tell their story.

Access the original article with this (Link)