I often answer the phone at one of our stores and right now the number one question is: Are your Idaho Peaches in? It so nice to be able to say that, “Yes, they are!”  While some say they will be right over and hangup (I imagine them grabbing their keys and tearing out of their garages.), a lot of people share their Idaho Peach story with me.  One customer today told me how she always used to can Georgia or Colorado Peaches, but ever since she tried our Idaho Peaches several years ago they have been her go-to canning peach. Another customer relayed that one year she hadn’t had time to can peaches all summer and was pleased to find we had peaches in September. So, she gave them a try. Now she waits for them every year and makes special trip from a hour way to pickup cases for herself and her neighbors.

We love to hear those kinds of stories from our customers. For our produce buying team, it makes all their hard work worth it. Now, we’ve seen that a lot of the stores near us have been advertising Idaho Peaches this summer and we know that they wouldn’t be advertising Idaho Peaches if it was for the fact that Skip Brennan had taken the time to drive to Caldwell, Idaho oh-so many years ago. There he met with John and Jim Symms, peach growers extraordinairre and a true partnership was born.

We know that we are the only ones who are in constant contact with the Symms, the only ones who drive out to the orchards ourselves to pickup our peaches and the only ones who put so put so much attention into displaying them and hand-selling them. We know this is why we hear stories like the ones above and many more.

So thank you to Skip, to our produce buying team and to our customers… many of whom are Idaho Peach fanatics, too! We’d love to hear your Idaho peach story, too!

One of the most important stops on my California trip was our peach and nectarine grower.  After all, it wouldn’t be summer at Brennan’s without Chin Drippin’ Peaches! 

John, Tim and Brian Fien (ranch manager)

We visited the ranch were 90% of our Ripe-and-Ready peaches are grown.  The peaches are picked starting early the morning. The crews pick 6 bins at a time and then the peaches are taken back to the packing shed to get the heat out of them (very important for quality fruit!). At the shed, they are tested for ripeness and brix (sugar) levels. Only the top 10% of the peaches make it to Brennan’s.

John and the ranch manager Brian took us out to the orchards where they were picking nectarines and Owen T plums. Brian explained that they are protective harvest certified and work extremely hard to eliminate spraying of any kind, except in emergencies. The key is to keep the moths away so they don’t lay eggs and end up with worms. They use a phloem  release box that emits the female  hormone causing confusion in the males so they can’t mate

Brian pointing out hormone release box

 (keeping males confused seems to be the best policy in general!). This has just about wiped out the need for spraying. They also use spot specific traps to monitor for bugs and will spray soft chemicals in hot (emergency) spots. Soft chemicals are a couple of years old and only last 4 hours. They are water soluble and dilute over time.

I asked Brian how they get such great color and size on their fruit. He says that it comes from orchard pratices during the year. The trees are pruned to encourage the best growth and the most sunlight onto the fruit.  Every picking crew has a crew leader that is in constant contact with quality control to report any problems.

It was great to see all the care and attention that goes into our peaches. We can taste the difference and hope that you can, too!