Sunsweet Growers
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Sunsweet Growers Incorporated is an agricultural marketing cooperative founded in 1917 as the California Prune and Apricot Growers Association. Sunsweet is headquartered in Yuba City, California, USA where, as of 2007, the company operated the largest dried fruit plant in the world. [1]
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[edit] Prune Market Domination
[edit] USA
40,000 cases of fruit are marked and sealed for distribution daily at the factory headquarters while its juice products are bottled in Fleetwood, Pennsylvania.[2] Over Half the growers in California belong to Sunsweet.
[edit] Worldwide
The company controls more than two-thirds(2/3) of the prune market worldwide.[3]
[edit] Chile & France
In Santa Cruz, Chile, in 2004 after the two consecutive years of crop disaster in California, Sunsweet completed a prune drying facility where it made plans to grow and process the dried fruit in an attempt to avert any future disaster.[4] The entire U.S. exports about 48% of prunes worldwide while the two major competitors, Chile produces 13% (partially due to the Sunsweet facility and growing) and France only about 12%.[5] These statistics are greatly affected by Sunsweet's production.
