History of Graceland Fruit

Graceland Fruit, Inc has been a pioneer in food manufacturing and the tart cherry industry since 1973. Graceland has a long tradition of innovation, beginning in the company's formative years:

1976 — Graceland founder Don Nugent begins research and development on dried tart cherries.
1988 — Increased R&D in other fruits and vegetable like blueberries, strawberries, apples, peaches, bananas, carrots, and more, leads to the installation of the world's first commercial cherry dryer at Graceland's processing plant in Frankfort, Michigan.
Graceland also develops slicing and dicing technology to provide more appropriately sized dried fruit to the ingredient and food service markets. Graceland is the only company in the world to offer this slicing/dicing capability.
1995 — Graceland dramatically increases its capacity with the addition of a new drying unit to meet growing consumer demand for natural, flavorful, high quality ingredients and allows the company to better serve the industrial market.
Graceland develops its own broker network to find new opportunities for its fruit products and to better penetrate the ingredient market.
1996 — Graceland acquires FREEZEFLO soft frozen fruit technology from Rich Products Corporation to expand its line of delicious fruit ingredients to include frozen fruit ingredients that are perfect for the dairy and frozen baked goods markets. (FREEZEFLO is a licensed registered trademark of Rich Products Corp.) FREEZEFLO eventually becomes Soft-N-Frozen™.
1999 — Graceland doubles its cherry processing facility.
1999 — Graceland named 1999 Michigan's Manufacturer of the Year
2000 - 2003 — Graceland offers consumers exotic fruit ingredients such as mangoes, pineapples, mandarin oranges and more.
2003 — Graceland receives the prestigious Edward R. Madigan U.S. Agricultural Export Excellence Award for its entrepreneurial efforts in foreign markets after winning the National Agricultural Marketer of the Year award and Michigan’s Exporter of the Year.
2004 — Graceland unveils infused dried vegetables and extended life Fridg-N-Fresh® vegetables.
2005 — Plans are finalized for a 45,000 square foot plant expansion facility that will include a third dryer to increase production capacity.
2006 — Construction gets underway for expansion project and a new wastewater treatment facility. First extraction system to produce fruit concentrate goes online.
2007 — Completion of a private equity offering, raising nearly $16-million in gross proceeds to go toward future expansion efforts.
2007 — Graceland partners with Otsuka Foods to offer Wild Veggie, the all-natural vegetable product that has fresh-picked flavor, nutritious appeal and innovative serving options.
2007 — Wastewater treatment facility goes online and building phase of expansion project is completed.
2008 — Second extraction system to produce fruit concentrate is commissioned.
2008 — Jumbo whole dried cranberries are introduced.
2008 — Construction begins on the third infusion and drying system
2009 — Production capacity increases by more than 40% as third infusion and drying system is completed and goes online.
2009 — Graceland introduces a new line of Cranberry Select ingredients.
2011 — New CEO, Alan DeVore joins Graceland
2012 — Graceland introduces products to home shoppers

Today, Graceland continues to manufacture extraordinary fruit and vegetable ingredients that are used in products like breads, muffin mixes, bagels, trail mixes, ice cream, frozen dough and many other consumer goods, and new ingredients and applications are being explored every day.