FruitGuys News

Fall Fruit Guide 2023

By The FruitGuys on September 25, 2023

The Fall equinox on September 23 marks the transition to shorter days across our hemisphere. Autumn also brings an abundance of tasty fall fruit, especially the peak of apple, grape, and pear season. …

Filed Under: Ask the FruitGuys, Food, FruitGuys News, Nutrition, The FruitLife Tagged With: apples, asian apple pears, different kinds of persimmons, fall, fall fruit, fall fruit guide, grapes, guide to fall fruit, how to extract pomegranate seeds, nutritional benefits of Asian pears, pears, persimmon, what's in season

FruitGuy Noir in The Sugar Crash

By Chris Mittelstaedt on September 12, 2023

I got the call around 2 p.m. They said a candy sugar crash had hit their place of work. This can be a tough town, I told them. There is always a clear plastic bowl filled with miniature chocolates in …

Filed Under: FruitGuys News Tagged With: end of summer, fruitguy noir, harvest, harvest box, healthy office, office fruit, regional mix, seasonal fruit, seasonal mixes, summer fruit, The FruitGuys

Dessert Foods versus Food Deserts

By Chris Mittelstaedt on August 22, 2023

I wasn’t really a very good student. Luckily in elementary school, I had a great teacher who helped me after school with my spelling. Her name was Mrs. Unruh. She used to devise little tricks to help …

Filed Under: FruitGuys News Tagged With: farm to fight hunger, fight hunger, fighting hunger, food dessert, GoodWorks, hunger relief, The FruitGuys, The FruitGuys GoodWorks

Gravenstein Apples Are Coming!

By Chris Mittelstaedt on July 18, 2023

Gravenstein apple season is one of my favorite times of the year. The harvest of this endangered Northern California heirloom apple is very short -- only 2-3 weeks in August -- and heralds the …

Filed Under: Food, FruitGuys News, GoodWorks, The FruitLife Tagged With: Gravenstein, Gravenstein Apple, Gravenstein apple farmer, gravenstein apple pie, gravenstein box, gravenstein history, heirloom apples, local farmers, sonoma county, support small farms, supporting farmers, The FruitGuys

Take a Breather to Cool Off

By Chris Mittelstaedt on July 11, 2023

It’s hot out there campers. While here in Northern California, we have been blessed with an unusually-cool summer thus far, I know the rest of the country is beating heat records left and right. This …

Filed Under: Ask the FruitGuys, Diet and Health, FruitGuys News, Nutrition Tagged With: fruitguys, health, lunch and learn, Nutrition, panel discussion, tab, take a breather, take a breather on demand

Upgrade Your Fruit Mix to Get the Widest Variety of Summer Fruit

By Chris Mittelstaedt on July 6, 2023

I hope everyone enjoyed a fun and safe July 4th holiday. We gathered with family and friends and ate our way through half a case of apricots my wife had ordered through our buying department. The …

Filed Under: FruitGuys News, Produce Glossary, The FruitLife Tagged With: Apricot, ask the fruitguys, fruit box, fruit mixes, harvest box, july 4th, peelable, seasonal fruit, seasonal mixes, seasons best, summer fruit, The FruitGuys, the Fruitguys fruit mix tour, variety

Happy Summer & Welcome Peaches

By Chris Mittelstaedt on June 20, 2023

At this time of year, varieties of peaches begin to come in and out of harvest almost weekly, evolving from June tartness to the cinnamony-sweet notes of late August. As I track the progression of …

Filed Under: Ask the FruitGuys, Food, FruitGuys News, Produce Glossary, The FruitLife Tagged With: flavor, fruit varieties, june, June fruit, Peach, peach varieties, peaches, stone fruit, summer fruit, unique

June Celebrations

By Chris Mittelstaedt on June 13, 2023

I love June. It’s the month when stone fruit becomes abundant, the hours of sunlight in the northern hemisphere reach their peak (summer solstice), and when we celebrate both Juneteenth & Pride …

Filed Under: Diet and Health, FruitGuys News, The FruitLife Tagged With: black owned business, diverse farmers, diverse vendors, june, June celebrations, June snacks, juneteenth, lqbtq business, pipcorn, pride, pride month, snack highlights, snacks, two chicks jerky

Summer Fruit Guide 2023

By Pia Hinckle on June 9, 2023

Do you remember biting into the first ripe peach of summer? The perfume of the fruit and the feeling of the fuzz in your hand? Summer for many of us is tied to the memory of a perfect piece of fruit. …

Filed Under: Ask the FruitGuys, Farms, Food, FruitGuys News, The FruitLife Tagged With: Angelcots, Blake Carlson, blueberries, bronx grapes, cherries, frecon farms, Fruit World, Mick Klug, Necta Pie, Peach Pies, peaches, stone fruit jam, strawberries, summer fruit, summer fruit guide, summer fruits, suncrest peach, Very Cherry Plums, what fruit is in season, what's in season

Of Blooms & B Corp (Re)certification

By Chris Mittelstaedt on May 31, 2023

Back in 2018, we began the process of becoming a Certified B Corporation (aka B Corp). We felt it was a good way for us to add transparency to our values-driven business model and to codify our …

Filed Under: FruitGuys News

Here’s to the 2023 FruitGuys Community Fund Grantees

By Chris Mittelstaedt on May 23, 2023

Each spring, The FruitGuys Community Fund provides annual grant awards for sustainability projects to small, American farms and agricultural nonprofits. An independent review committee made up of a …

Filed Under: FruitGuys News, GoodWorks, The FruitLife Tagged With: 2023 grant awards, agricultural nonprofit, big impacts, BIPOC farmers, food access, land stewardship, LGBTQ farmers, small farms, supporting small farms, sustainability, sustainability projects, The FruitGuys Community Fund, women in agriculture

The FruitGuys Community Fund 2023 Farm Grantees Announced

By Sheila Cassani on May 16, 2023

Each spring, The FruitGuys Community Fund provides annual grant awards for sustainability projects to small, independent American farms and agricultural nonprofits. We believe small farms are critical …

Filed Under: Farms, FruitGuys News, GoodWorks, The FruitLife

The Gamble of Early Summer Fruit

By Chris Mittelstaedt on May 9, 2023

Long ago I wondered why slot machines used cherries as the winning images for hitting the jackpot. It didn’t make sense to me. Maybe a dollar sign, or a star, but cherries? It seemed odd. Yet a …

Filed Under: FruitGuys News, The FruitLife Tagged With: California, cherries, cherry harvest, cherry trees, chill hours, stone fruit, summer fruit

Leaping into Spring: Our 25 Year Impact Report

By Chris Mittelstaedt on May 2, 2023

I was once told by a trusted friend that, for impatient people like me who sometimes think that acting fast produces a greater result in a shorter amount of time, it is actually the ability to slow …

Filed Under: FruitGuys News, GoodWorks, The FruitLife Tagged With: 25 year impact report, fighting hunger, GoodWorks, Impact Report, supporting small farms, The FruitGuys GoodWorks

FruitGuy Noir in: Avoiding the Rabbit Hole

By Chris Mittelstaedt on April 25, 2023

The text came in old school: via Cowbell Morse code. “You’re a little rusty,” my catfish Bicycle mimed to me while I wrote down the incoming message. “Got it,” I quickly flagged back to Bicycle in …

Filed Under: FruitGuys News Tagged With: fruit, fruit and nature, fruitguy noir, fruitguys, rabbit hole, spinning mind

Fruit in Words and Deeds

By Chris Mittelstaedt on April 18, 2023

The struggle and beauty of fruit, its cultivation and care, is a dance of regenerative-impermanence. As we approach Earth Day, I find myself fascinated with the idea that the earth itself gives us …

Filed Under: Farms, FruitGuys News, GoodWorks, The FruitLife Tagged With: community fund, earth day, farm grants, farm stewardship, frecon farms, fruitguys community fund, land stewardship, life cycle, power of fruit, regeneration, sustainability, sustainable farming

Spring Fruit Guide

By Elisabeth Flynn on April 1, 2023

It’s a spring like no other, with most of us hunkered down at home and waiting for the waiting to be over. While we wait, you can enjoy the bounty of spring fruit that The FruitGuys will be bringing …

Filed Under: Diet and Health, Food, FruitGuys News, The FruitLife

A banana walks in to a bar…

By Chris Mittelstaedt on March 28, 2023

As part of our celebration of 25 years in business, we are dusting off some of my classic newsletters. Here’s one from 2006 that reveals the inspiration behind The FruitGuys Bananas. It must …

Filed Under: FruitGuys News Tagged With: 25 year anniversary, bananas, bananas in vegas, fruitguys 25 years, fruitguys bananas, The FruitGuys

The Balance Needed in Spring

By Chris Mittelstaedt on March 21, 2023

Balance feels like something we need these days. Between wild weather (in California at least) and banking instability, finding balance for farmers, and the ag industry in general has been a bit of a …

Filed Under: FruitGuys News Tagged With: 2022, 2022 impact report, b corp, balance, impact at a glance, spring, stability, strawberries, support small farms, supporting small farms, sustainable agriculture, sustainable farming, The FruitGuys, The FruitGuys GoodWorks

Celebrate Black Farmers & Agricultural Inventors

By Chris Mittelstaedt on February 13, 2023

There were nearly a million farms operated by Black farmers around 1920 which the census at the time noted made up about 14% of the total U.S. farms. Today the National Agricultural Statistics Service …

Filed Under: FruitGuys News, The FruitLife Tagged With: agricultural history, agricultural leaders, agricultural research, Black agriculture, Black farmers, Black History Month, Black inventors, George Washington Carver