Fruit juice maker Sun-Rype has bought one of its major U.S. suppliers in Washington state for an undisclosed sum.
The Kelowna, B.C. firm announced Friday it had a deal effective Sept. 30 to buy the business and assets of Yakama Juice of Selah, Wash., near Yakima, from the Confederated Tribes and Bands of the Yakama Nation.
Sun-Rype on its website calls Yakama as a “well-respected co-packer of Sun-Rype branded products for close to three years now.”
In its release Friday it described Yakama as a “significant” fruit processor and beverage maker, supplying beverage firms and retail clients in both the U.S. and Canada and posting annual sales of about C$17 million.
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Sun-Rype, on its website, emphasized it plans to continue to serve Yakama’s other customers and “assume all existing business.” Sun-Rype also said it’s “familiar with (Yakama’s) operation and look(s) forward to integrating it into our organization more fully.”
Yakama’s Selah facility is compliant with U.S. Department of Agriculture regulations, HACCP-approved, and certified organic by the Washington State Department of Agriculture, Sun-Rype said.
According to an article Friday in the Yakima Herald-Republic newspaper, the Yakama Nation had owned the juice plant at Selah since 2004, when it paid US$2.25 million for what was then known as Hi-Country Foods.
Hi-Country had operated at Selah for over 50 years but had filed for creditor protection when the Yakama Nation stepped in, the newspaper said, citing court papers.
Harry Smiskin, the Yakama Tribal Council’s chairman, told the Herald-Republic’s Philip Ferolito that it was an “opportune time” to sell the plant, its first off-reservation business, and Sun-Rype “made us an offer that we couldn’t refuse.”
The deal offers some “very exciting growth opportunities, expanding our breadth of processing and manufacturing capabilities and increasing our access to the abundant fruit supply in the (U.S.) Pacific Northwest region,” Sun-Rype’s CEO Dave McAnerney said in its release.
The company has previously said its primary source for apples remains B.C.’s Okanagan Valley, but “if our demand is greater than the valley can provide, we then source apples from Washington state.”
The Yakama deal also “broadens the products and pack types we can bring to our consumers,” Sun-Rype said, noting the Selah plant fills both plastic and glass containers.
But Sun-Rype also emphasized that it “remains fully committed to our Kelowna facility,” a HACCP-approved, federally-inspected plant.
Sun-Rype has operated in the Okanagan since 1946, when it was launched by the B.C. Fruit Growers Association as an apple juice venture.
