Tree Top: Creating a Fruit Revolution

Photos in Life magazine, 1951, show dump trucks and bulldozers dwarfed by enormous mounds of rotting apples — $6 million dollars worth of apples rotting in the Yakima dump. At that time, culls, rejected due to shape or size but perfectly sound, had no market. In Tree Top: Creating a Fruit Revolution, David Stratton describes how a man with a vision created a growers' cooperative and revolutionized the industry.

That visionary was William Henry Charbonneau, described variously as eccentric, perfectionist, irascible, and roughshod. A beverage salesman, Charbonneau objected to the "belly wash" that masqueraded as healthy beverages, but actually consisted of mostly water and artificial flavoring. He was confident that wholesome, 100% pure apple juice would sell, and set out to create it.

Imitating the new and successful frozen orange juice industry, Tree Top was formed to create a market for cull apples, an economic cushion for growers, and a safety net against a volatile market. Tree Top has continued strongly to the present, expanding to include many apple and pear products, including pear-based sweeteners and the dried “blueberries” in your breakfast cereal, many of which are actually colored dried apples.

Today, Washington is the nation's leading domestic apple producer. A single acre of our fertile soil can yield 32,900 pounds, creating an annual market of more than $1.7 billion. As many as 12 billion apples are picked each year—all by hand—making the fruit the state's top-ranked agricultural commodity. Charbonneau, and Tree Top, are a fascinating part of our legacy, and a model of recovering our values out of our waste stream.

Click here to read a review of Tree Top: Creating a Fruit Revolution in Washington State Magazine.

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