Diversification has been key to family farm’s growth, expansion

When Karl Dorsing won a homesteading lottery to receive a small plot of farmland in Royal City, Washington, in the early 1960s, he and his wife, Margaret, set out to build an operation that would withstand the ups and downs of farming – and the economy.

chili lime bagThe Dorsings started out in row crops, branching into orchards with apples and sweet and tart cherries in the 1980s.

“My grandpa was very innovative in his approach to farming,” said Karl’s grandson, Bryce Dorsing. “He was always looking to grow different types of crops, have different types of markets, and be more diversified and spread out his risk.”

So Karl Dorsing would probably like what his children and grandchildren have done with the place – or places, that is.

Generation to generation

Karl and Margaret’s three sons have since passed the company on to a third generation, which includes Bryce’s brother Patrick and cousins Kevin and Scott.

“We’re currently a third-generation, family owned, company,” said Bryce, senior vice president of Royal Ridge Fruits.

Growing to become a huge producer of Montmorency tart cherries, with about 2,500 acres of farmland on the West Coast, the family established Royal Ridge Fruits in 2000. Under that name, they began freezing and distributing their products – mainly to the industrial ingredient market.

“Those products are mainly sold on a direct basis – typically in pallet or truckload quantities,” Dorsing said.

Besides cherries and apples, they grow blueberries, raspberries and a variety of seed and row crops. Royal Ridge added drying capabilities in 2006, distributing its industrial dried fruits on a primarily direct basis as well. The family then established the Stoneridge Orchards brand in 2010.

“We were looking for a way to get into the retail avenue and sell directly to retail,” Dorsing said, explaining that Stoneridge was an existing brand based near Danville, California, where the company now maintains a sales and marketing office. “They … had the brand and were basically buying dried fruit in bulk and repackaging it into consumer-sized bags.”

A substantial expansion with installation of new equipment came in 2014, increasing the Royal Ridge production facility in Royal City to about 200,000 square feet.

“(Now) we’re producing the dried fruit in our facility in Royal City and also packaging Stoneridge Orchards there as well,” Dorsing said. “A big mindset of our company is to continually vertically integrate and get our products as close to the consumer as possible. When we were just farming, we spent so much effort and time on our quality that we felt when we would send our fruit out to the fresh fruit warehouses, they would blend our fruit in a pooling effect with other growers and we felt our quality was getting lost in that process.

“Our intent was to maintain the quality we were growing out on the farm through the processing of the fruit and sell that off in another fashion.”

Target: Consumers

Now the company has ventured into new territory by rolling out a series of new products under the Stoneridge label. Ranging from dried fruits lightly dipped in dark chocolate or yogurt to tart cherries flavored with the Mexican seasoning blend, Tajin, the company is also debuting new sliced peaches and snack-size packages of dried tart cherries.

“We’re trying to be innovators in a somewhat mature category,” said Jan Remak, Royal Ridge vice president of marketing. “Retailers on the consumer side are always looking for something new and exciting – ways to grow business in their categories.”

Stoneridge’s dipped dried fruits use whole fruit as opposed to the juice and pectin commonly found in similar products, Remak said.

“And more importantly, they (other producers) would put two-and-a-half to three times the ratio of chocolate coating fruit,” he adds. “Our products, whole fruit, have a one-to-one ratio of coating to the fruit (so it has) more of the fruit taste, and the fruit quality – that really comes through.”

The Tajin-flavored cherries came about because researchers noticed many of the company’s Hispanic production employees using the chili-lime spice mix to season their own fruit.

“We did research on chili lime and how that was growing across other categories,” Remak said. “We really tried to optimize the product and develop a flavor profile that would appeal to many segments of consumers – not just Mexicans and Mexican-Americans.

“It’s sort of a sweet/savory cherry, and it’s delicious.”

Stoneridge’s sliced peaches are innovative in that they use actual peach wedges, Remak said.

“There aren’t a lot of dried peaches out there, but the ones that are are typically a cross-section cut almost like an apple ring,” he said. “We actually take a peach wedge … we dry those, they’re sweet and moist. It’s a unique product in the marketplace.”

Products come in 3-, 4- or 5-ounce bags, with some larger packages available for club stores like Costco and in bulk for certain retailers.

The goal is to grow Stoneridge into a national brand.

“Consumers of our products are interested in healthy snacking,” Remak said. “We think we’re bringing some new people into the category, and also people are switching.

“We’re also attracting people outside of the category who just want healthy snacking products.”

In all, the company processes more than 20 million pounds of frozen and dried fruit annually. Besides its own farms, it sources fruit from a network of select growers in Washington and Canada. And in addition to what it processes, Royal Ridge sends about 10 million pounds of fruit into the fresh market each year.

It’s a big, diverse and expanding operation, with 10 to 15 percent growth year over year since Royal Ridge was established.

“The diversification on the farm side of it, growing different crops, and in different regions around our area, and diversifying into food processing from frozen fruit to now dried fruit on the industrial side and dried fruit in the retail – are all key strategic moves on our part,” Bryce said. “Farming can be fairly risky, and we’ve had some crop disasters.

“It was that diversification that allowed us to make it through.”

He thinks his grandfather would be pleased.

“He always talked about having a fruit processing facility and taking it to the next level from just farming,” Bryce said. “Unfortunately, he had a stroke … and wasn’t around to see Royal Ridge be built.

“I think he’d be really proud and excited for what’s happened, for what it’s grown into.”

— By Kathy Gibbons, contributing writer



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