Sunsweet Growers
| Company type | Agricultural marketing cooperative |
|---|---|
| Industry | Agriculture, Food processing |
| Founded | 1917 |
| Headquarters | Yuba City , United States |
| Products | Dried fruit, juice products (prunes, prune juice, cranberries, apricots, nectarines, pineapples, mangoes, dates) |
Sunsweet Growers Incorporated is a United States-based agricultural marketing cooperative that originated in 1917 under the name California Prune and Apricot Growers Association. Its main office is located in Yuba City, California, where it manages the largest dried fruit processing facility worldwide.
Products
The company focuses on dried fruit and juice items, with prunes as its primary offering. Its range encompasses prunes, prune juice, cranberries, apricots, nectarines, pineapples, mangoes, and dates. Recent additions to their lineup include Ones (prunes individually wrapped), Jumbo Red Raisins sourced from Chilean vineyards, PlumSweets (prunes coated in chocolate), PlumSmart plum juice, along with specialty varieties of mangoes, blueberries, cherries, and mixed berry products.
Prune market domination
Sunsweet holds a commanding position by supplying more than two-thirds of the worldwide prune market.
United States
At the Yuba City facility, approximately 40,000 cases of fruit are packaged daily for shipment, while juice bottling occurs at the plant in Fleetwood, Pennsylvania. Over fifty percent of California’s prune producers belong to Sunsweet’s cooperative network.
Chile and France
Following consecutive years of reduced yields in California, Sunsweet launched a prune drying operation in Santa Cruz, Chile, in 2004 to diversify production sources and reduce risk exposure. Globally, the U.S. accounts for nearly 48% of prune exports; Chile contributes around 13%—a figure enhanced by Sunsweet’s Chilean facility—and France provides close to 12%. Sunsweet’s activities play a major role in shaping these export proportions.