11/11/05 Value added grant for fruit packer

11/11/05 Value added grant for fruit packer

Two Northwest orchards were among the 171 recent recipients of U.S.D.A. Value Added Producer Grants. Batch and Batch Orchards of Washington earned a $35,000 dollar grant. And Orchard View Farms near The Dalles Oregon received a $25,000 grant. Orchard View's owner, Ken Bailey, says his grant will be used to determine if a state of the art cherry sorter can increase revenue from his Rainier cherries. BAILEY: And it entails determining how much value we're adding on how accurate we can grade our fruit for size, and also includes some research into how the stems on the cherries are adding value. Cherries generally come in two or three in a bunch, and we cut them apart on our dark cherry lines, and we're looking at maybe seeing if maybe leaving a full stem on it if that would had any value on it or not, or is it an attraction for the marketplace. The idea is if the sorter can select the larger cherries with greater accuracy, then it could be profitable for Bailey to sell the larger cherries in Europe, where they would fetch a premium price. Bailey will use statistical data on this year's crop and the 2006 crop gathered and analyzed by an Oregon State University agriculture economist to determine economic viability. Currently, dark skinned cherries are separated by size, but the lighter skinned varieties like Rainiers are not usually sorted due to their propensity to bruise easier.
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