Tale of the Juicer Apple

About two-thirds of the apples Tree Top receives are destined for world famous Tree Top brand juice beverages. The Cooperative processes an average of 300,000 tons of apples per year for juice markets in the western and mid-western United States, plus selected international sites. Juicers are shipped to Tree Top in bulk from fresh fruit warehouses. The fertile hills and valleys of Washington State make it the largest apple-growing area in the United States. The heaviest production is in the months just following the harvest, from mid-September to the end of December, when production lines often run 24 hours a day. An abundance of controlled atmosphere storage in the region enables Tree Top production facilities to remain busy most of the year.

Fifty tons of juicers every hour are washed in a huge rotary drum. The four-stage wash includes banks of high-pressure nozzles that help make the fruit squeaky clean. A conveyor moves the fruit to the disintegrator, which is much like a large and powerful blender. Here the apples are broken into small pieces under the force of whirling, half-inch-thick blades. Reduced to bite-sized fragments, the apples are then conveyed by auger and pump to the decanter.

Apple Chunks from the disintegrator move next to the decanter where juice is separated from solids. Here a powerful centrifuge spins the pieces at a dizzying 4,000 revolutions per minute, generating a force 4,000 times greater than gravity. Then the solids are extracted from the decanter in a multistage process. After additional processing, they are sold for a variety of uses, including food ingredients for human consumption and feed for cattle. There is virtually no waste from Tree Top's processing system.

The Juice is clarified in a second centrifuge, this one turning at 6,500 RPM and 5,000 Gs. Suspended solids remaining in the juice are removed through microfiltration as the fluid is pumped through a series of ceramic membranes. Juice clarification is a multi-stage process. During each of many steps, suspended solids are extracted until what remains is pure, cloudless, amber-colored juice.

To ensure taste consistency, juice is concentrated and then blended to demanding Tree Top Standards. Concentrate is produced in an evaporator where steam heat and a vacuum remove much of the water. The result is seven times the strength of original juice. The essence, or flavor of the juice is distilled in a separator, the liquid vaporized, then recondensed as a clear fluid. A single gallon of essence provides flavor for 150 gallons of single strength apple juice.

The blending process is very precise and tightly controlled. Computers monitor flows and measure concentrate volume by weight. These steps are critical in assuring that the great taste of Tree Top never varies from container to container. In the blender, a sweep agitator reunites the basic components of apple juice: concentrate, essence, and water.

Exacting quality control standards assure batch-to-batch consistency within 1 percent. Sugar-to-acids ratios, color, and pH are measured objectively. Human tasters also play a key role in assuring Tree Top quality. More than 45 Tree Top employees are trained tasters serving on regular tasting panels. Product purity and shelf stabilization are assured by sterilizing and pasteurizing at 180 degrees. Consumer safety is assured through tamper-evident closures.

Straws are applied to juice boxes during the last stage of aseptic packaging, done on three dedicated lines. Juice is sterilized at 195 degrees then chilled to 70 degrees. The flat cardboard container is formed, sterilized and filled in a completely-controlled environment. Tree Top juice products come in all sizes and shapes - with more than 100 packages and configurations. Finished product is shipped from Tree Top production facilities to retailers, brokers, and distributors in 30 states and selected international markets.