Payson • At one time, most of the tart cherries grown in Utah were turned into sweet, syrupy fillings for pies and desserts. But the tart cherry industry has transformed, offering consumers a healthier slice of this summer fruit.
Today, more than 90 percent of Utah's tart cherry crop — the second largest in the nation — is dried, packaged and used for granola, trail mixes and other good-for you snacks.
Utah is part of a national trend. Dried tart cherry sales in the U.S. have grown from 10 million pounds in 2002 to 75 million pounds in 2013, according to Perry Hedin, executive director of the Cherry Industry Board.
Leading this dried cherry revolution for Utah and the U.S. are the Payson Fruit Growers and general manager Phil Rowley.
"It's such a fascinating industry, but not very many people in Utah know what we do," said Rowley, whose family owns and operates South Ridge Farms and Rowley's Red Barn in Santaquin and St. George.
The obscurity is surprising because cherries are as American as pie and President George Washington.
Rowley said most people don't realize there are two types of cherries produced in the United States: sweet and tart.
About 97 percent of the sweet cherries are grown in Washington, California and Oregon and are sold fresh to consumers through grocery stores and markets.
When it comes to the Montmorency tart cherry, Michigan is considered the U.S. capital, producing more than 200 million pounds annually. Utah is a distant second, averaging 30 million to 40 million pounds each year, said Rowley. In 2014, however, Utah had a bumper crop, harvesting nearly 50 million pounds of red tart cherries.
Utah fruit farmers are watching their orchards closely these days, fearing that a late spring freeze will damage the new buds that already have begun to form because of Utah's mild winter temperatures.
Most of the Utah tart cherries are grown in the region surrounding Utah Lake, where the elevation, climate and soil combine to help the fruit trees thrive. Currently, eight family farms produce most of Utah's tart cherry crop; together they make Payson Fruit Growers cooperative.
Almost all the dried tart cherries from Michigan and Utah — as well as smaller amounts from Washington, Wisconsin and New York — are dried, canned or turned into cherry juice concentrate.
The drying process is a year-round endeavor at the massive Payson Fruit Growers plant and warehouse just off Interstate 15. When the cherries are harvested, usually in late July and early August, they are pitted and frozen in 30-pound buckets. Each week more than 600,000 pounds of fruit are removed from the deep-freeze, thawed and put through the drying process.
The dried fruit is then packaged for large and small customers around the globe, including familiar labels such as Costco, Sam's Club and California's Mariani, to name a few, said Rowley.
Utah consumers also can find the dried tart cherries at Rowley's Red Barn or online at paysonfruitgrowers.com.
History • Thirty-plus years ago, it was Rowley's persistence and ingenuity that helped get the dried tart cherry industry off the ground, said Kenyon Farley, co-owner of Valley View Orchards in Utah County. "The process has evolved over time," Farley said, "but Phil really got it started."
In the late 1970s, the majority of tart cherries grown in Utah were pitted and made into canned pie filling, Farley explained. But consumer tastes were changing and the industry needed to change to survive.
At the time, large-scale cherry drying was still in its experimental stages.
At the time, a co-op in Michigan was attempting to use a steam-oven method for drying, a process Utah growers later tried. Both camps eventually abandoned the idea because the drying was inconsistent and left too much moisture in the fruit, creating mold.
Despite the setback, Rowley still believed cherries could be dried successfully.
In the mid-1980s, he consulted with dehydration experts at the University of California at Davis and toured orchards and the plants where prunes and apricots were dried. He came home with a prototype idea that would dry the cherries using fans.
By 1987, after years of trial and error, Rowley and South Ridge Farms were able to dry cherries that were colorful and plump but with minimal moisture. At the time, Rowley said, South Ridge Farms was the one of only two successful drying operation in the country. Not long after, South Ridge Farms combined its operations with the Payson Fruit Growers.
Rowley downplays his role in helping the industry evolve, but admits, "It was a great opportunity to create a piece of machinery that was capable of producing such a fine product."
Brent Black, the fruit specialist with Utah State University, said making the switch to dried cherries is significant for Utah's agricultural landscape.
"Tart cherries have always been a viable crop in Utah, but as people's eating habits changed, the market started to go away," he explained. "Drying the tart cherries has revived it."
The dried tart cherry industry got an additional boost when the health industry began promoting the fruit as a super food. Studies have shown that dried tart cherries are high in antioxidants — two to three times higher than fresh sweet cherries. They also are one of the few fruits with natural melatonin, which researchers say may help regulate sleep and lessen inflammation.
"We hit a home run when they discovered that," Rowley said.
"I'm glad we've been able to move out of the dessert and high-sugar area and into something more healthy," he said. "I don't think we would be as large of an industry without that."
kathys@sltrib.com