Forever Fresh Unveils Shelf-Life Extending Cherry Packaging

Forever Fresh, a vertically integrated sales and marketing company reports a positive outlook for Chilean and Peruvian winter fruit. Chilean cherry production is expected to be up 35 percent over last season. 

“The Chilean growing season has been near perfect," says Evan Myers, general manager of Forever Fresh. "We’ve had a perfect winter that has provided significant chill hours for high cherry production. A moderate frost during the first week of September did change original estimates with the central region estimating a 10 percent reduction with Curico and southern regions estimating a 20 percent reduction in volumes.” 

The prospects for an above average season for Chilean cherries provide good news for not only growers, but also for retailers and consumers. Forever Fresh’s growers are estimating that Chile will produce around 23 million 5-kilogram cases of cherries this season, far exceeding last season’s very short crop. Forever Fresh expects to market more than 400,000 cases of fresh Red and Rainier cherries in North America this season. Air freight arrivals will kick off the Chilean cherry season in early November and additional vessel arrivals will continue through the end of January. New this season, Forever Fresh will also be offering air Cherries from Argentina with arrivals starting mid-February through the first week of March.  

Forever Fresh has the ability to repack cherries using state of the art cherry repacking lines on both the East and West coasts to ensure the highest quality cherries in the market. Cherries will be available in traditional standup pouches and Forever Fresh’s new controlled atmosphere 1-pound top seal clamshells. 

“We are excited about our new top sealed clamshells," Myers says. "Extensive testing proves that this new packaging provides a tremendous opportunity to improve quality by extending shelf life and reducing shrink at retail.” 

In addition to a strong cherry season, Peru is projecting a mid-October harvest start and estimates of 38 million cases of grapes this season versus 35 million last year with roughly 15 million cases of seedless grape varieties available this season while a variety shift is underway.  “The Peruvian grape production is currently shifting with grape production growing, but we are seeing the ratio of red globes versus seedless grapes shrinking with more hectares (9,289) of seedless varieties planted, versus 7,850 hectares of Red Globes," says Meyers. Forever Fresh expects North American arrivals beginning in mid-November. 

As for stone fruit and grape volumes from Chile, it’s still too early to know what the overall volumes are to be, but Forever Fresh reports that the frost that occurred in early September did have some negative effects on the Plum crop.