Tree Top | About Us

History

Over a half a century ago Bill Charbonneau, his wife and two sons moved to the Yakima Valley from southern California. He purchased a small apple processing plant on Produce Row in Selah, Washington, and set about developing a quality brand of apple juice. That move dramatically affected the entire apple industry.

Mr. Charbonneau held a contest among his employees to choose a brand name for his product, and the winning entry was "Tree Top." It was widely believed in those days that the very best quality fruit grew at the top of the trees. Consequently, the name "Tree Top" was befitting the quality juice Mr. Charbonneau planned to produce.

Original product line included three items of single strength apple juice and three sizes of apple cider.

Mr. Charbonneau's office was located right in the plant facility so he could personally oversee juice production. The apples were pressed and the juice stored in 5,000 gallon holding tanks. Every time a batch of apples was pressed, a sample was brought to Mr. Charbonneau to taste. If the juice did not meet his approval, the entire 5,000 gallon tank would be poured down the drain.

The company is dedicated to the tradition of "quality" established by Bill Charbonneau over 50 years ago. Tree Top's laboratories contain the most sophisticated equipment available for testing juice quality. Tree Top also has the only trained taste profile panel in the apple juice industry.

Original Tree Top Offices and production facility in Selah, Washington.

This 1950's photo of apples was taken at the Chelan, Washington, dump.

In 1950, Life Magazine showed a double page spread of 5,000 railway cars of Washington State fruit being dumped into the Columbia River because there was no processor to handle it. As late as 1960, many growers were paying to have their fruit dumped or buried in canyons and rivers of Washington State. The fortunate ones were selling their fruit for a shaky $5 a ton.

A handful of orchardists purchased Tree Top from Bill Charbonneau in 1960 and formed a grower-owned cooperative. Since the cooperative's inception, that handful of orchardists grew, at one time, to be 2,500 grower-owners in the states of Washington, Oregon, and Idaho. Today, 2005, there are 1,460 grower-owners of the Cooperative. And, in its first 20 years of existence, the Tree Top cooperative returned in excess of $85 million to its grower membership for what was once a waste product.

Tree Top pioneers frozen apple juice concentrate

In 1963, Tree Top pioneered frozen apple juice concentrate. Tree Top had to sell consumers on the idea of frozen apple juice, as well as sell them on the Tree Top Brand. Frozen juice could be economically shipped to any market the company developed.

In 1968, Tree Top began not only to juice apples but also to slice them. With two plants now specializing in dried apple products, Tree Top has become the largest supplier of dried apple products in the world. Its dried sales are mainly for ingredient use, and Tree Top's dried and low moisture apples find their way into the nation's top brands of cereals, cake mixes, cookies, etc.

In 1970, Tree Top introduced its unfiltered apple juice in answer to the consumer demand for "natural" foods. Tree Top also began marketing frozen concentrated cider that year.

In 1975, Tree Top introduced Pear-Apple and Pear-Grape pure fruit blends to provide its members with an outlet for processing pears. Although those items are no longer offered in the Tree Top product line, many of the cooperative's juice blends contain pear concentrate. Tree Top has succeeded in placing a sales value on processing pears, as well as processing apples.

There are now six Tree Top production plants, with locations in Selah, Cashmere, Wenatchee, and Prosser, Washington, and Rialto, California. The California plant is strategically located near the cooperative's major southern California markets.

Under the guidance of capable management and a dedicated board of directors, Tree Top has developed marketing leadership for our top-quality processing fruit products. We are noted as a pacesetter within our industry. The little co-op that began in May of 1960 has grown up and made good.