| All About Tree Top |
| Friday, 23 July 2010 16:23 | |||
 (During our time covering the 2010 IFT Conference in Chicago, we discovered a handful of companies we’d previously not been aware of — organizations doing good things we thought our readers would enjoy hearing about. Here’s one of them. Ed.)
Selah, Washington, July 2010 — Over a half a century ago Bill Charbonneau, his wife and two sons moved to Washington’s Yakima Valley from southern California. He purchased a small apple processing plant on Produce Row in the town of Selah, and set about developing a quality brand of apple juice. It was a move that dramatically affected the entire apple industry. Mr. Charbonneau held a contest among his employees to choose a brand name for his product, and the winning entry was "Tree Top." It was widely believed in those days that the very best quality fruit grew in the tops of trees. Consequently, the name "Tree Top" was befitting the quality juice Mr. Charbonneau planned to produce. The original product line included three items of single strength apple juice and three sizes of apple cider. Mr. Charbonneau's office was located inside the plant facility so he could personally oversee juice production. The apples were pressed and the juice stored in 5,000 gallon holding tanks. Every time a batch of apples was pressed, a sample was brought to Mr. Charbonneau to taste. If the juice did not meet his approval, the entire 5,000 gallon tank would be poured down the drain. Tree Top is still dedicated to the tradition of "quality" established by Bill Charbonneau. Tree Top's laboratories contain the most sophisticated equipment available for testing juice quality. The company also has the only trained taste profile panel in the apple juice industry. In 1950, Life Magazine showed a double page spread of 5,000 railway cars of Washington State fruit being dumped into the Columbia River because there was no processor to handle it. As late as 1960, many growers were paying to have their fruit dumped or buried in canyons and rivers of Washington State. The fortunate ones were selling their fruit for a shaky $5 a ton. Then a handful of orchardists purchased Tree Top from Bill Charbonneau in 1960 and formed a grower-owned cooperative. In 1963, Tree Top pioneered frozen apple juice concentrate, as the juice could be economically shipped to any market the company developed and could provide the consumer a considerable value. First, however, the company had to sell consumers on the idea of frozen apple juice, as well as sell them on the Tree Top Brand. In 1968, Tree Top began not only to juice apples but also to slice them. With two plants now specializing in dried apple products, Tree Top has become the largest supplier of dried apple products in the world. Dried fruits are mainly for ingredient use, and Tree Top's dried and low moisture apples find their way into the nation's top brands of cereals, breakfast pastries, cake mixes, snacks, etc. In 1970, Tree Top introduced its unfiltered apple juice in answer to the consumer demand for "natural" foods. Tree Top also began marketing frozen concentrated cider that year. In 1976, Tree Top introduced Pear-Apple and Pear-Grape pure fruit blends to provide its members with an outlet for their processing pears. The Co-op continues to use pears in many of its juice blends. Tree Top succeeded in placing a sales value on processing pears, again creating a continued market value for its grower’s processor fruit. Three Apple Blend was introduced to the market place in 1998 and has remained Tree Top’s premium juice offering since. Tree Top Fresh Apple Slices® made their debut in 2001 and in 2006 a state-of-the-art processing facility was constructed on the Selah campus to handle the booming business of providing sliced apple snacks to the food service industry. Since the late 1980s the Co-op acquired several other fruit-processors and brands such as Valley Evaporated Company, Sun Ridge Foods, Seneca Foods Prosser Plant and sauce label division, Watermill Foods, and most recently the Sabroso Company of Medford, Oregon. These acquisitions allowed Tree Top the ability to offer the widest array of fruit-based products and ingredients to retail markets, the food service industry, and food manufacturers. Tree Top now operates seven production plants strategically located near the fruit sources, with locations in Selah, Cashmere, Wenatchee, and Prosser, Washington, and Medford and Woodburn, Oregon as well as one in Oxnard, California. Our little co-op has grown considerably since 1960 thanks largely to the small town values and work ethics of our growers and employees that have been a part of our culture since the beginning. We are pleased to now be recognized as a pacesetter in the fruit-processing industry and a premium brand that offers value to our customers. We thank you for your continued patronage and support. Tree Top celebrated its 50th Birthday this year. www.treetop.com SOURCE: Tree Top
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