History
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 triples its capacity with the addition
of a new drying unit to meet growing consumer demand for
natural, flavorful, high quality ingredients. This allows
the company to offer as much as three complete truck loads
of dried fruit products each day to its customers.
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.
- 2000 – 2003 Graceland offers consumers dried 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.
- 2004 - Graceland unveils infused dried vegetables and
extended life Fridg-N-Fresh® vegetables.
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.
|
