The first thing we do with a bin of cherries is dump it into a hopper. The hopper is a large tub full of water. The water protects the cherries so that the cherries don't fall too hard and squash each other. There is an elevator in the hopper that takes the cherries out at a constant speed and feeds the other machines. Before the hopper is empty, we fill it with more cherries so we never stop having cherries run through the system. |
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The cherries fall on a sizer and are separated into the 3 different sizes. The sizer also takes out some of the trash. They then fall on a sorting belt where more bad cherries are thrown into the trash. The good cherries then go through a machine that takes the pits out. After pits have been removed from the cherries, they go through a high tech x-ray machine that detects if pits are still remaining in any cherries. The cherries with pits are blown off the line and in to the trash. |
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After the cherries are pitted and ran through the x-ray machine, Belle (one of the daughters who the company was named after) and her friend, Kerstin managed quality control. They took samples of cherries and check the quality, size, and if any cherries still had pits in them.
Still, you need to be careful when eating cherries no matter where they come from. No cherry pitter can be 100% accurate for 100% of the time. |
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After the cherries go through the x-ray machine, they come down a vibrating table that spreads them evenly onto trays. The trays are stacked and brought to the field to be dried. These 3 stackers were my Spanish teachers for all of May and part of June. I'm not sure I learned a lot of Spanish but at lunch they cooked some killer food! |
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These organic cherries are stacked on trays to be brought to the dehydrator. Organic cherries are dehydrated, and all our other cherries are sun dried. The dehydrator is the best way how to dry organic cherries because the quicker one can dry organic fruit, the less time the fruit has to oxidize, and more the nutrients will be preserved. |
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Here is our yard full of cherries drying in the sun on trays. |
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Meagan, our shipping manager, and Laura, one of our field managers, greet each other in the yard of fruit. |
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It takes about 7 days to dry the cherries, depending on the temperature out side.
I hope you enjoyed your tour through our farm at
Bella Viva Orchards.
Michael Colombo |
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| Dried Bing Cherries |
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Grown on our Modesto orchards, these deep purple Bing Cherries pack a wallop of sweetness. They are a great snack and perfect for baking. Make a tasty treat by stuffing our dried cherries with chocolate chips, and use them in the cookie dough of a chocolate chip cookie recipe - kids love them. You can also sprinkle these in with your muesli and yogurt for a refreshing continental breakfast.
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