Sunsweet plant’s improvements bearing fruit

Sunsweet Made In Berks Photo by Bill Uhrich 5/2/2017 Jeff Brunner of Leesport, maintenance manager at Sunsweet, holds the first bottle of prune juice produced at Sunsweet in Fleetwood dated March 13, 1991.

Harold Hoch

Sunsweet, based in Fleetwood is celebrating 100 years. Prune juice bottles are packaged and headed for the shipping department. BW_Sunsweet Photo by Harold Hoch 5/4/17

Harold Hoch

Sunsweet, based in Fleetwood is celebrating 100 years. Production line bottles are grouped in the packing area. BW_Sunsweet Photo by Harold Hoch 5/4/17

Harold Hoch

Sunsweet, based in Fleetwood is celebrating 100 years. Cases of prune juice bottles are packaged, stacked, shrink wrapped and extracted by forklift to the shipping department. BW_Sunsweet Photo by Harold Hoch 5/4/17

Harold Hoch

Sunsweet, based in Fleetwood is celebrating 100 years. Production line bottles travel to the packing area. BW_Sunsweet Photo by Harold Hoch 5/4/17

Sunsweet Made In Berks Photo by Bill Uhrich 5/2/2017 Prune pits are extracted.

Harold Hoch

Sunsweet, based in Fleetwood is celebrating 100 years. Monika Hamsther of Fleetwood examines the readings on the newly installed Production Efficiency Tracker. BW_Sunsweet Photo by Harold Hoch 5/4/17

Harold Hoch

Sunsweet, based in Fleetwood is celebrating 100 years. Production line bottles travel to the packing area. BW_Sunsweet Photo by Harold Hoch 5/4/17

Harold Hoch

Sunsweet, based in Fleetwood is celebrating 100 years. Production line bottles travel to the packing area. BW_Sunsweet Photo by Harold Hoch 5/4/17

Harold Hoch

Sunsweet, based in Fleetwood is celebrating 100 years. Production line bottles stream into the packing area. BW_Sunsweet Photo by Harold Hoch 5/4/17

Harold Hoch

Sunsweet, based in Fleetwood is celebrating 100 years. Cases of prune juice are ready for transport in the shipping department. BW_Sunsweet Photo by Harold Hoch 5/4/17

Sunsweet Made In Berks Photo by Bill Uhrich 5/2/2017 Rick Gonzalez of Temple and his son Gabriel of Reading work in the front end of the juicing operation.

Sunsweet Made In Berks Photo by Bill Uhrich 5/2/2017 Prune pits are extracted.

Harold Hoch

Sunsweet, based in Fleetwood is celebrating 100 years. Production line bottles travel to the packing area. BW_Sunsweet Photo by Harold Hoch 5/4/17

Reading Eagle: Bill Uhrich

Prunes arrive from California.

Harold Hoch

Sunsweet, based in Fleetwood is celebrating 100 years. Production line bottles are grouped in the packing area. BW_Sunsweet Photo by Harold Hoch 5/4/17

Sunsweet Made In Berks Photo by Bill Uhrich 5/2/2017 Juice is filtered out.

Harold Hoch

Sunsweet, based in Fleetwood is celebrating 100 years. Production line bottles stream into the packing area. BW_Sunsweet Photo by Harold Hoch 5/4/17

Sunsweet Made In Berks Photo by Bill Uhrich 5/2/2017 Sunsweet plant manager Ed Murphy walks through the tunnel underneath the railroad tracks that connects the processing part of the plant with the bottling part.

Harold Hoch

Sunsweet, based in Fleetwood is celebrating 100 years. Richard LaFaver, 78, of Fleetwood is a long time employee of the company. BW_Sunsweet Photo by Harold Hoch 5/4/17

Sunsweet Made In Berks Photo by Bill Uhrich 5/2/2017 Operations supervisor Kenneth Yeager of Leesport holds one of the Sunsweet products at the new wrap-around case packer at the Fleetwood plant.

Sunsweet Made In Berks Photo by Bill Uhrich 5/2/2017 Tanks hold the juice before pumping to the bottling facility.

Sunsweet Made In Berks Photo by Bill Uhrich 5/2/2017 Juice is filtered out.

Harold Hoch

Sunsweet, based in Fleetwood is celebrating 100 years. Production line bottles stream into the packing area. BW_Sunsweet Photo by Harold Hoch 5/4/17

Harold Hoch

Sunsweet, based in Fleetwood is celebrating 100 years. Prune juice bottles are packaged and headed for the shipping department. BW_Sunsweet Photo by Harold Hoch 5/4/17

Harold Hoch

Sunsweet, based in Fleetwood is celebrating 100 years. Production line bottles travel to the packing area. BW_Sunsweet Photo by Harold Hoch 5/4/17

Sunsweet Made In Berks Photo by Bill Uhrich 5/2/2017 Jeff Brunner of Leesport, maintenance manager at Sunsweet, looks over the Daily Line Review, a new innovation at the plant.

Harold Hoch

Sunsweet, based in Fleetwood is celebrating 100 years. Production line bottles stream into the packing area. BW_Sunsweet Photo by Harold Hoch 5/4/17

Sunsweet Made In Berks Photo by Bill Uhrich 5/2/2017 Operations supervisor Kenneth Yeager of Leesport holds one of the Sunsweet products at the new wrap-around case packer at the Fleetwood plant.

Harold Hoch

Sunsweet, based in Fleetwood is celebrating 100 years. Prune juice bottles are packaged and headed for the shipping department. BW_Sunsweet Photo by Harold Hoch 5/4/17

Sunsweet Made In Berks Photo by Bill Uhrich 5/2/2017 Prunes arrive from California.

Harold Hoch

Sunsweet, based in Fleetwood is celebrating 100 years. Prune juice bottles are packaged and headed for the shipping department. BW_Sunsweet Photo by Harold Hoch 5/4/17

Harold Hoch

Sunsweet, based in Fleetwood is celebrating 100 years. Production line bottles stream into the packing area. BW_Sunsweet Photo by Harold Hoch 5/4/17

Harold Hoch

Sunsweet, based in Fleetwood is celebrating 100 years. Production line bottles stream into the packing area. BW_Sunsweet Photo by Harold Hoch 5/4/17

Harold Hoch

Sunsweet, based in Fleetwood is celebrating 100 years. Cases of prune juice are ready for transport in the shipping department. BW_Sunsweet Photo by Harold Hoch 5/4/17

Sunsweet Growers Inc., Fleetwood, located in nine buildings on 17 acres, is the national company's second bottling facility.

Founded in 1917, Sunsweet, a California-based cooperative, is headquartered in Yuba City, where the bottling plant is located.

Sunsweet gets its prunes from California, Florida, Argentina, Australia and Chile.

The Fleetwood plant, the former Red Cheek apple juice plant, was purchased in 1991 and was viewed as a strategic location for Sunsweet to distribute products to New England and the Mid-Atlantic regions and generally to locations east of the Mississippi River, according to Ed Murphy, plant director of operations.

"We run three bottling lines and do 15 million cases of product a year," Murphy said.

However, only about 17 percent of the product line at Fleetwood is the Sunsweet brand of prune or plum juice, he said.

Prune juice is made from dried fruit, and plum juice is made from fresh fruit, Murphy said. The plant packages prune juice and Plum Smart plum juice, in addition to Plum Smart Light.

More than 80 percent of its production involves co-packing for another company's juice or iced tea products.

Recently, the Sunsweet plant upgraded some of its packing equipment and initiated a software production efficiency tracker, which has improved overall performance and output, Murphy said.

Sunsweet, which provides prunes to 25 percent of the global market, was founded in 1917. It celebrates its 100th anniversary this year. It patented a prune-pitting process in 1965.

In 2006, the company launched individually wrapped Sunsweet Ones and has boasted expanded growth, riding a wave of health awareness in diet and cooking.

"This is an exciting time for all of us here at Sunsweet," said Jeff McLemore, vice president of North American marketing for Sunsweet.

"As a prune and apricot growers co-op in California, we are 250 growers strong today, producing 40,000 cases of high-quality fruit and juice product every day," McLemore said.

In 1932, Sunsweet prune juice was introduced to the market, McLemore said. Since then, the prune ingredient is available in purees, concentrates and powders.

Contact Bruce R. Posten: [email protected].

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