Homegrown Organic Farms has seen sales skyrocket for premium freeze-dried fruits, while more of the fresh crop is also finding a market through increased demand for imperfect produce. At www.freshfruitportal.com, we caught up with the group's stonefruit and grape category director Stephen Paul to discuss healthy snack trends and ways to reduce waste.

"It’s almost growing so fast that it’s not measurable, and that’s the weird thing about it - its dynamic is somewhat limitless," says Paul, whose company's products will be on show at the upcoming Fresno Food Expo on July 27-28.

With organic blueberries, grapes and apples in its portfolio, Homegrown's freeze-dried snacks have been sold for five years now and show no signs of hitting any plateau just yet.

"It’s all about the sustainability of the mission of zero waste, because it takes so much to grow this product – the resources, the water, the labor," he says.

"Because it has a blemish or a cosmetic issue doesn’t mean that fruit is not valuable in some form, so our mission is to make sure we’re finding ways to maximize returns back to the grower, back to the resources and that we are becoming as efficient as we can."

Homegrown Organic Farms uses third-party facilities for freeze drying the products, which are sold anywhere from small health stores to large supermarket chains. It has also recently enlisted the help of retail distribution specialist Sinclair Group to go "beyond the produce aisles".

"You don't need to re-create the wheel. The processing of this is very important, but what is most important is the product you’re giving the processor to process.

"That’s what separates us from everybody else; we have a superior product that has been designated for this item and that separates us from the competition.

"The new Millennial generation is becoming more concerned about what they eat and how they take care of their health, and that comes down to healthy snacking," he says.

Paul added discussions were also underway with 'multiple entities' to start up an export program.

"It can go to Asia, the Middle East or Europe. We're not restricting any opportunity. I think really the issue is where there are people focusing on clean eating."

"You're not dealing with a mass product, you’re dealing with a clean product and very limited resources, so you are going to pay a little bit more for it as you do with organic anyway. But our goal is to make it as affordable as we can.

"We think we’ve done that and we’ll continue to improve on that."

The nutrition question

For a large portion of consumers the concept of freeze-dried food is still very novel, so the question often arises, does it have the same nutritional benefits as fresh fruit or are certain nutrients lost along the way?

"It's only the moisture that's being lost," he clarified.

"The process of freeze drying is a process of removing the moisture and leaving everything else behind in a certain state that can be sustained for a year.

"We know what causes any type of decay or problems is moisture – with a freeze dried product it cannot have any oxygen or sunlight exposure, because that would draw the humidity and the moisture in the atmosphere, and it'd become gummy."

So how does this compare to other processes in the fruit industry, like drying tomatoes or grapes.

"With sun-dried products you’re still retaining some moisture in it, and you’ve got to add some sort of preservative on that like a sulfur dioxide. Well, now you’re adding a chemical to it for preservation and that’s not what you want.

"From an organic standpoint, when you first dry the product it’s going to look normal, and over time it’s going to turn brown. It’s not that there’s anything wrong with it, it’s just visual," he said of the sun-drying process.

"We tend to eat with our eyes and that’s just a natural characteristic for us as human beings. Over time a sun-dried product will oxidize to the point it doesn’t have the visual appeal. A freeze dried product doesn’t have that; it’s going to maintain its texture if it’s handled correctly and sealed tight."

Imperfect produce

There is a certain irony in taking ugly fruit that wouldn't be accepted by the market and making it into a premium product that sells at prices above snacks like chocolate bars or potato chips. But what about the fruit that doesn't make that grade, or followers of the anti-food waste movement who are priced out of the freeze-dried fruit market?

For several years now, Homegrown Organic Farms has also had that base covered.

"For Homegrown there are two different grades – there’s the U.S. number one grade which typically we pack to, but for years there was a U.S. number two grade and no one really packed to it. But we do," Paul said.

"At Homegrown we have our number one label for tree fruit and then we have a label called Eco which is our number two label – when we’re packing, anything that has a blemish or a scar or maybe is slightly misshapen, that goes into our Eco box and there’s a market for that.

"It’s been growing for the past five years since I’ve been here – we answered the question for maximizing returns to the grower by keeping about anywhere from 10-15% in the marketplace for them to get a return back, as opposed to prior to that five years it was being thrown away and fed to cattle," he said.

Paul clarified that only fruit that had cuts, was decaying or immature would not make that grade.

"We’re seeing traction right now - it’s all about education. It’s all about letting people know that just because a fruit has a blemish it doesn’t mean there’s anything wrong with it," he said

"In fact sometimes the speckling or certain spots on certain fruits are mistakenly identified as russeting or a flaw happens to be a sugar spot, and it’s actually the sweetest piece of fruit.

"For example, did you know that the pomegranates that have the cracks actually have the sweetest arils in them? Well, that gets thrown away, and that's ridiculous."

He said Eco's motto was "healthy and affordable organics for all".

"My question is why do we have starving people in this country? We shouldn’t have starving people in this country. The motto of the story is we shouldn’t be throwing anything out, because we’re not creating a market to distribute it to where we are benefiting everybody.

"So there’s a place for the number ones and the people who can economically pay for it, but we have turned our back for years to those in the marketplace who may not be economically able to afford things, and therefore why shouldn’t we find ways to take care of that?

"There are people who are struggling day-to-day who want to eat organic fruit or fruit in general, and if they had the opportunity to buy it for less then that’s an emerging market; that’s not going to be cannibalizing an existing market.

"The market is much bigger than what we think it is in the fresh fruit business, and we need to be involved with all of it."

www.freshfruitportal.com