SALINAS, CA - I have a confession to make—I rarely eat breakfast. Between making myself appear office ready to making sure my four month old puppy isn’t destroying anything in the house, there’s not a lot of “me time” in my morning routine—or any time of my day, for that matter. Here to make sure I get a healthy snack in my body without all the fuss is Naturipe Snacks™, with its new, 5 oz fresh fruit cups.

As Jill Overdorf, Director of Business Development of the Value-Added Fresh Division, tells me, the new line taps into the potential of the grab and go category in ways not yet explored by the produce industry.

“Our fresh fruit cup line is really focused on grab and go. The packaging is designed to sit right in the cup holder of a car,” Jill explains before unveiling the real kicker for these new products. “We did something unique and added an eating utensil: a spork. You just rip the top off and the spork sits above the fruit—nobody wants to grab an eating utensil that’s all sticky. It’s designed to keep in mind that busy person who is always in their car or taking their kids to soccer practice, or just someone who is always on the road and looking for a healthy snack in the afternoon.”

For its initial debut, Naturipe is offering the following combinations of fresh fruits:

• Strawberries
• Strawberries and blueberries
• Apples, grapes, and blueberries
• Grapes and blueberries
• Apples and blueberries

This year’s Canadian Produce Marketing convention in Vancouver was the first major unveiling for the line. There, the company had a French-English bilingual version on deck for Canadian buyers with plans to hit stores by the end of May—perfect for summer promotional tie ins and outdoor holidays. Whereas many snacks you see during this time of the year are full of sugar and preservatives, Naturipe Snacks’ fruit cups are 100 percent fresh, Jill notes.

“I think what’s great about our fruit cups is that it is a fresh product, unlike a lot of other items in the snacking category,” she says. “ A lot of other fruit cups on the market have either preservatives or are in a sugary sweet liquid. But as both consumers and the snacking industry is trending more towards fresh, we decided to stay away from the concept and focus on what Naturipe does best—delicious fresh produce.”

The cut fruit section of the grocery store is now a 2.7 billion category, Jill tells me, adding that Naturipe’s would fit very well being merchandised in that same sector, standing out amongst product types that have been done and done again by other produce companies.

“The cut fruit category is dominated by apples,” Jill explains. “We’re really the only ones who are doing a berry as part of a snacking product. There’s a huge opportunity gap for us that exists between vegetable snacking products and what’s happening with apples. Household penetration for berries is off the charts—strawberries are in the high 90s and blueberries are rapidly getting to that same level. Berries are now the largest category in retail, and we’re filling a need for consumers who are wanting more on the go, convenient, and healthy snacks.”

Naturipe Snacks’ 5 oz fruit cups will be hitting stores soon, so make sure to keep the company in mind when filling out the fresh cut section at your store. You might even catch me driving down the street spork in hand in a location near you!

Naturipe Farms Naturipe Snacks