Dried food packs making comeback

SAN FRANCISCO A few generations ago, fancy packs of assorteddried fruits were popular visual and taste treats during theholidays.

Time seemed to pass those prettily packaged delicacies by asconsumers became used to more modern food processing methods, butthere are signs that a new interest in dried fruit and even fancypacks may be developing.

"During World War II, people ate a lot of dried fruit," says DonWhittemore of Vacaville Fruit Co. "When the war was over and freshfruit was available, dried fruit did sort of shrivel up."

The market for dried fruit began expanding again "as the publicbecame more health conscious in the late 1970s," Whittemore said.

Vacaville Fruit has been providing dried fruit in bulk,particularly to Del Monte, since 1961 and began marketing individualpackages of fruit last year.

"We buy fresh fruit from farmers and process it into dry fruit,"Whittemore said. "About 90 percent of the fruit we process goes tobig processors, but package sales are growing fast."

Vacaville Fruit created a resealable type of packaging for itsindividual sales, he added.

The company entered the fancy pack market for Christmas salesthree years ago. In 1985, Vacaville Fruit had orders for 21,000assorted fruit packs. Orders for 1986 reached 80,000 by early fall,with officials hoping to top 100,000.

Richard Nola, who owns Vacaville Fruit, thinks the company'sgrowth lies in "gift packs and various types of marketing. I thinkit's come back because people are more conscious of what they areeating."

To satisfy its markets, both old and new, the company buys fruitfrom a wide geographical area of California, Nola says. Most fruitcomes from Solano County, but apricots are bought in San Benito,peaches in Stanislaus, pears in Lake, nectarines and figs in Fresnoand dates in Indio County.

A few of the goodies in gift packs are not produced locallybecause they do not grow commercially in California.

Pacific Dried Foods is a bulk importer of pineapples, papayas,banana chips and coconuts for health food stores and supermarkets.Lately, the Temecula-based company has been selling to gift packprocessors and other specialty users as well.

"There's been a big push for gift packs," said spokesman BillMorris. "I sell to people who make gift packs. I sell to candy andice cream companies. These products are very popular in trailmixes."

Dates traditionally were a staple of Christmas gift packs, sothey too are gaining sales.

Western Date Ranches at Bard near California's southeasternborder with Arizona markets some of its Medjool dates in fancy boxesby themselves, but most of the crop is sold in bulk.

"A lot of the crop winds up in fancy packs and is sold by mailorder," said Glen Vandervoort, the company's sales manager.

"It is coming back. People are going with this nutritiousnesssnack, and it fits right into that."