Apr 7, 2007
Family Makes Its Mark with Dried Cherries, Chocolate

Mike and Marsh Shadbolt are not your typical Oregon sweet cherry growers. In fact, the couple is one of a kind.

For starters, the Shadbolts, owners of Cherry Country in the Eola Hills west of Salem, didn’t conduct their first harvest until they were approaching age 50.

And when they did enter the business, they opted to convert the small orchard to organic production and to dry and otherwise further-process their entire crop, instead of following decades of tradition and sending it off to be brined and made into maraschino cherries.

And finally, the Shadbolts, with their daughter Celeste, became the only cherry growers to receive an Excellence in Family Business Award, which the got from Oregon State University’s Austin Family Business Program this year.

Today, they’re marketing their signature product, Dried Cherries & Chocolate, as a healthier alternative to the traditional cherry cordial.

Learning how to manage a cherry orchard in mid-life is challenging enough without taking on the added challenge of growing the fruit organically.

Mike tips his hat to veteran organic cherry grower Bob Skibinski for showing him how to convert the conventional trees he bought in 1991 into trees that would eventually earn organic certification from Oregon Tilth.

And then there was learning the ins and outs of pitting and drying. The Shadbolts give a lot of credit to OSU for helping them get going after cleaning up an old cherry pitter.

The Shadbolt operation also tries new production ideas, like bolstering its pollination program with Mason bees, constructing homes for them in the crotches of trees.

“I’m impressed with Mason bees. I think they’re worth doing,” Shadbolt said.

To produce a product with maximum flavor and sweetness, they harvest weeks after immature brine cherries have been plucked from trees.

“You take risks when you leave them on the trees longer,” Shadbolt said. Contending with fruit-cracking rains and finding pickers are two of the biggest challenges.

Celeste’s fluency in Spanish has greatly helped Cherry Country keep qualified harvesting help in the orchard after brine cherry growers have wrapped up for the summer and pickers have moved on to other crops.

Today, the value-added end of Cherry Country operates out of a 3,000-square-foot processing plant and retail store that the Shadbolts built on the farm in 2001. That same year Shadbolt quit his full-time job with Oregon’s Economic and Community Development Department to devote all of his energy to Cherry Country.

While most of the Shadbolt’s crop is sold dried or chocolate coated, some of the fruit is sold fresh.

“If we have a really good harvest we take some of the cherries to fresh markets,” Shadbolt said. “There’s a market for fresh Royal Anns. They have a wonderful flavor.”

Only blemish-free, top-quality fruit is pitted, dried and chocolate-coated.

“When you take good care of the fruit, you get a good product,” Shadbolt said.

Since no additives are used during the drying process, Cherry Country’s processing plant also is certified organic.

“We find it so important not to add additives because they change the taste,” Celeste said.

The Shadbolts sell their cherry products at farmers’ markets, wine tastings, through retail outlets such as Made in Oregon and on their Web site (www.thecherrycountry.com).

“We do have a few wholesale customers we sell our dried cherries to, but for the most part our products are sold directly to the public,” Celeste said.

In addition to the Portland Saturday Market, which keeps the whole family hopping in their 10-by-10 booth, food and wine shows also are among the better revenue producers.

“Our chocolate-coated cherries complement wine really, really well, so they’ve been popular at wine shows and wineries in the area,” Celeste said.

One thing people like about Cherry Country’s chocolate-coated dried cherries is that they are not cordials, Celeste said.

“We’ve found that selling the dried cherries helps our chocolate sales because people can see they are not cherry cordials, and there isn’t a gooey artificial cherry in the center of them,” she said.

As for the future, the Shadbolts, who are very much hands-on in the little processing plant and at selling events, are finding that it may be time to start hiring some help. They also are contemplating planting more trees.

Cherry Country can be reached on the Web at www.thecherrycountry.com.




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