2024 Cherry Harvest: A Season of Sweet Success

As another cherry season comes to a close at Chukar Cherries, it’s the perfect moment to reflect on what made the 2024 crop exceptional. Get an insider’s glimpse into this year’s standout season!

Excellent Quality & Yield

"The crop was outstanding," remarked B.J. Thurlby, president of Northwest Cherry Growers in the The Columbian. This year, 19.2 million 20-pound boxes of cherries were harvested in the Northwest, with 17.7 million coming from Washington State. This result aligns with the region's best years and surpasses Northwest Cherries' expectations from June.

Founder Pam Montgomery admires local grower Juan Ruvalcaba's 2024 harvest

A Busy Time at Chukar HQ

This year, Chukar dehydrated over 600,000 pounds of local cherries at our facility in Prosser, WA. We handle every step of cherry processing, which includes sorting, washing, de-stemming, and pitting fresh cherries before slowly drying them in warm air tunnels or transforming them into jarred specialities.

Thanks to our new dehydrator, we were able to increase our capacity this year by 35%, which means we can meet further demand for our growing customer base.

Because we start with fresh cherries, all of our dehydrating take place within hours of when the cherries have been harvested. However, our chocolate cherries are made fresh before shipping for optimal flavor.

Washington State Bounty

Nestled in Washington’s famous fruit-growing region, Chukar is ideally located to source the nation's best sweet cherries. Our longstanding relationships with local growers allows us to ask them to leave the cherries on the tree a little longer so that their natural sugars can fully develop. This results in greater sweetness and helps preserve the fruit naturally as the sugars reach their peak.

Our "tree-to-table" approach ensures maximum freshness, taste, and nutritional value. Transforming local cherries into authentic Northwest goodies and gifts has been Chukar's specialty since the company launched on the Alexander-Auld orchard in central Washington’s fruit lands in 1988.

Sustainability at Every Step of the Way

Beyond the harvest, we continue to operate a zero-waste cherry processing line. All cherry pits, culls, and stems are composted locally, producing nutrient-rich compost needed for additional agricultural production.

Looking Ahead

As the 2024 cherry season comes to an end, it's rewarding to see our hard work pay off. The cherries that we've lovingly processed will soon shine in our products, from chocolate cherry assortments to cherry pie fillings.