(upbeat music) - You know, sometimes when the mother gets the baby, they always say, "This is beautiful."

But I looked at my baby and I said I want ugly.

And I want it to be as ugly as possible, because with the fruit, that's what matters.

- I'm Kim Sorenson and my husband Mark and I started Triple Delight Blueberries about 25 years ago.

- Well, we're kind of midway through our picking.

We're on our fourth or fifth picking here in this variety, and we have people out here today and we're getting ready to take this fruit to the packing house.

- My name's Casey Jones with Sun Valley Packing.

I'm a fifth-generation family farmer from Kingsburg, California.

About 1.5 million pounds of fruit runs through this facility every day.

Not all of that fruit makes its way all the way out to the end consumer.

So we've partnered with Ben at The Ugly Company to find an outlet for that otherwise blemished piece of fruit that would not ever make it to the end retailer.

- My original plan was to start a non-profit that would take this fruit, preserve it, and use it for disaster relief fruits.

So like if there was a hurricane or something like that.

- Yeah, nobody in those early days, - No.

- Just bought blueberries just to eat.

- [Driver] Right.

- We are located just south of Fresno, a few miles in the general vicinity of Caruthers.

We have three daughters, they're grown now with children, all married.

But when we started this business, they were all very small, very young.

And we thought Triple Delight, resembling the three daughters, was a good name and it kinda stuck.

- It seems like it's getting harder and harder to do what we do, just through regulations, lack of water, a lot of things that are difficult to deal with.

- The entire concept behind Ugly Fruit is to save otherwise damaged product from being food waste and taking it, providing and finding a finished product for that on the other end.

- And I like the name of it.

Ugly on the outside, and beautiful in the inside, I think it's like perfect, because sometimes it is a little ugly on the outside but it's delicious.

- I wish I would've come up with this idea.

(gentle music) - [Narrator] Production funding for American Grown.

My job depends on AG provided by James G. Parker Insurance Associates, ensuring and protecting agribusiness for over 40 years.

By GAR Bennett, the Central Valley's growing experts, more yield, less water.

Proven results.

We help growers feed the world.

By Brandt Professional Agriculture, proudly discovering, manufacturing and supplying the AG input that support the heroes who work hard to feed a hungry world every day.

By unWired Broadband.

Today's internet for rural central California.

Keeping valley agriculture connected since 2003.

By Hodges Inc.

Battery Storage Systems.

Would you rather invest in PG and E's infrastructure, or your own?

By Harrison Co. Providing family farms with the insights they need to make the best possible strategic M and A and financial decisions.

By Sierra Valley Almonds.

Dedicated to sustainable agriculture and water efficiency for a brighter farming future.

By Cal-Pacific Supply.

Providing agriculture the field supplies needed to keep field operations on track.

And by Valley Air Conditioning and Repair.

Family owned for over 50 years, dedicated to supporting agriculture and the families that grow food for a nation.

(gentle music) (gentle music) - My husband's a fifth generation raisin farmer, so we farmed raisins.

That's just what we did and started thinking about, you know, we really want to possibly diversify, do something else besides just raisins.

Not only because of financially it's probably a good idea to have a couple of different things that you do, but just to do something different.

We also wanted something in our family that our girls could be part of.

In the raisin industry, we grow raisins, they go on a truck, and we never see them again.

Sun-Maid does everything with them after they leave our farm.

So we wanted something with our family that we could do that they could kind of be part of and never really thought about even doing farmer's markets.

We just thought it would be fun to have something that the girls could be part of around that's nearby our home.

There you go.

- There you go.

Thank you.

Have a great day.

- We have been growing blueberries for around 25 years, over 25 years.

Growing blueberries here in the valley is very difficult and we've learned the hard way of what not to plant, and certain varieties have been developed more for our valley here and I think after this many years we've kind of got it down.

- Our daughters were young at the time and we decided it would be fun to take them to a farmer's market.

So we loaded up the truck.

I think we stopped three times on the way there to fix the tarp that was covering our blueberries.

But that first time we went, just fell in love with what we were doing.

We never had experienced just the feeling of seeing eye to eye, someone that is tasting our blueberries, something that we have produced and enjoying that so much.

It really just, we fell in love with it that very first time and we obviously needed a name for our farm and so we kind of threw it out there to some friends.

What should we name this blueberry farm?

And Triple Delight Blueberries just really stuck.

We had three delightful daughters and we wanted it to portray them 'cause they were really part of this whole thing.

And Triple Delight Blueberries was the winner, and so that's who we've been for the last 25 years.

We started in 1997, started doing markets right, I think, 1999.

And so it's been, it's been that ever since, and it's grown from that one little market that we were doing as a family to now we're doing close to 75 markets a week in the Bay Area.

Obviously we're not doing it all ourself.

We have a lot of people that work with us and that are on our blueberry team each year, but we're able to go to a lot of farmer's markets in the Bay Area and it has really grown to what it is today.

- We feel like this business has got our daughters really involved in the farming aspect.

They went to the markets with us and they kind of fell in love with farming, taking a good product to customers and hearing the customer response.

(lighthearted music) - My name is Ben Moore here at The Ugly Company.

I do everything from drive truck to do a little bit of accounting, a little bit of sales, a little bit of welding and some people call me the CEO.

There's already people wanting the beautiful fruit, and so that's what we do here at The Ugly Company is we take the ugly fruit that nobody wants or is not able to be sold for one reason or another, and we process it here in this plant to make fully nutritious fruit snacks, dried fruit that has no added sugar, no added ingredients, no extra preservatives.

It's literally just the fruit itself.

It's just really at the end of the day, it's an extension from the way my Swedish grandmother used to dry fruit on the roof of the house that we'd miss in the fields when we'd go through picking when I was a kid.

So at the end of the day, we're here to prevent food waste.

So we're doing that here locally in Central California.

(lighthearted music) - Yeah, I think where The Ugly Company really differentiates itself from other partners that have come to us with similar drying capabilities are nothing that Ben is doing is purpose grown.

The purpose of The Ugly Company is to prevent food waste.

We purpose grow for our partners and our consumers and what Ugly does is takes the waste that we would otherwise be throwing away and turning it into a finished product that can still be consumed and return some portion of a dollar or value back to us.

(lighthearted music) - Hello, my name is Carolina Hurtado, I've been here for Sun Valley packing 14 years.

I help out with production.

I do also the quality control.

Well, I have to supervise what we are packing in a number one box, what goes in our number two box, and what goes out in our (indistinct).

Usually we tend to, what goes in the number one box, usually they want kinda like a perfect box.

Usually what they don't want in number one box, they would be scars, staining.

Sometimes there's something called split, it's a little open on the bottom.

Overall, the fruit sometimes might look nice all around, but with a little bit of scarring, like a medium size.

They don't want that in number one box.

So unfortunately we would have to throw that away or put it in utility.

But sometimes even utility, depending on the market, they don't even want it in utility.

So sometimes we have to throw that away.

The fruit is beautiful, just has a little bit of scarring or a little bit of staining and we would have to throw it out.

- To utilize every piece of fruit that we grow on the tree is extremely important.

We put the same inputs, energy and dollars into a tree, whether we utilize 30% for the fresh market, 60% for the fresh market, or 90% for the fresh market.

So when I first met Ben with The Ugly Company, he was in the back driving a truck, ponytail, you know.

Cowboy hat, dirty jeans, hauling fruit off and five years later is the CEO of Ugly Fruit.

That's still who he is.

He's passionate about what he does.

He connects with people in a real, regular and common sense way, and he's the perfect face for The Ugly Company.

(lighthearted music) (car beeping) - Out of here we have seven markets going out today, but all around the Bay Area we've actually, there's 26 markets happening that we are, that Triple Delight Blueberries is at.

So we've got, we've got some other locations that we drop off berries to on Fridays down in, over in the South Bay, down in the Santa Cruz area, over in East Bay.

And then we've got employees that work in all of those areas that go to the refrigerators and pick up their berries just like this on Saturday mornings early.

And then they go out to their markets.

So this is a really big part of it because these are most of our really big markets, but there's a lot of other people working just like this and loading their cars like this all around the Bay Area today.

(gentle music) - Yeah, we do quite a few markets in the Bay Area from Napa to Carmel and it's 50 or 60, 70 markets a week and we have several people working for us, but we cover a lot of 'em with just our family on weekends and it's been something that brings us a lot of joy.

It's a lot of work but we have a lot of fun doing it.

- [Woman] Yeah, this is a rain or shine group of people.

Well, and honestly most of them are walking or taking a bus- - They're walking and there's chefs there and if there's a Giants game, it's always gonna be decent.

- [Woman] Yeah.

- So being from the Central Valley where our farm is in Caruthers, California, the first market we went to was in Aptos over in the central coast area, and that kind of turned into doing a few markets in that area.

We started doing Carmel in Monterey and then the following year we had a retired couple that decided they wanted to do some markets as well.

So they went to an area and they did some markets down near Pismo in Morro Bay the second year.

And honestly, it just kind of grew every year.

We had friends that just came up and said, "Hey, we wanna do this.

We wanna be part of this."

And so before we knew it, we were doing mainly markets in the Bay Area.

That is really where we started.

And in those early years, there were no blueberries around.

And honestly, people, when we first started, we had to talk people into buying them because I mean they knew they tasted great but they didn't know what to do with them.

They said people weren't used to just eating fresh blueberries from our area because we didn't have 'em here.

And so they would say, "Hmm, I guess I could make, some muffins or I could make some pancakes."

But they weren't used to eating 'em fresh.

So I think it was really kind of a challenge to us to just get people to try them and to just start eating 'em.

And I mean today it's a staple in most households.

People just buy blueberries to eat and honestly that's the best way to eat 'em anyway is just to eat 'em fresh.

- The boys are oldest.

They're about the same age we were when we first started selling blueberries and seeing them, the next generation starting, it is pretty surreal.

It's kind of a full circle realization that they're gonna get the same upbringing that we were able to get and the same experiences that we got as kids and it's really special because it's something that has shaped us and it's something that's part of who we are and seeing that it's part of them as well, it's something that means a lot to us that we're able to give our kids that same experience in life.

We live on the farm and so they get to see the whole process of in the early spring when there's blossoms and then they get to see the whole process of them being harvested and then pruned in the fall, and then bringing 'em to market and they've really been taking their little job seriously.

So it's really cool to see that their pride in our family business and they're loving what they do too, so, it's been really cool.

(gentle music) - I've been in the business of dealing with Ugly Fruit for about 12 years now.

And the first six years, first six years, that was just straight hauling fruit and dumping it out.

I started The Ugly Company officially in the summer of 2018.

That's when I came together with, self inspired by looking at the mirror and like, hey, ugly.

Let's call it The Ugly Company.

Let's make a great consumer product.

Let's make an exciting brand around it.

Let's generate demand for these products where they're fundamentally, there's not enough consumer demand for the value added products made from fruit being thrown out.

So that's the big economic imbalance.

And then in June of 2019 was when I had the first products on the shelves in stores.

And let me tell you, we've come a long way (chuckles) from that dumpy packaging and the really infantile product I had come together and squabbled together to put in there.

So we've come a long way.

I've been in business about six years officially here at The Ugly Company.

(upbeat music) Originally, I was looking to either build or buy a fruit dehydrator.

There's approximately about 20 of these facilities in California.

They're on all different forms of function and disrepair.

A lot of 'em were built around the prune industry and the raisin industry which has contracted quite a bit in my lifetime.

And so this facility itself, it was interesting 'cause it wasn't even on the market.

I was out looking at other facilities 'cause I needed hydration capacity, a packing shed, and I also needed a cold storage to store products and warehouse.

This facility had the two most important things.

It had the 32 dehydrating tunnels and it had this beautiful packing house, which was not beautiful at all at the time.

It only had one light switch that had like the old lights from the 80s that just, (humming) you know, those ones.

And yeah, it was originally a prune dehydrator that had, that operation had ceased for at least 10 or 12 years and it was kind of on its last leg, reconditioning a little bit of raisins every year.

So these purple bins, the company didn't start here, but I think in a lot of ways the company was defined by these purple bins.

And it's kind of funny because the origins of the company is it was actually difficult to get a lot of farmers to work with us just to source fruit with us.

And it was of no fault to them.

But we're not just picking up fruit for free and we're kind of disrupting existing operations that weren't necessarily built to handle fruit, ugly fruit hygienically and to transport 'em.

And so a lot of it started in these purple bins.

I was driving truck and I was borrowing bins and I was even going to like recycling yards and buying cheap bins and things like that.

But fruit bins are one of the hardest things to keep track of in the valley, even at your own packing house.

But then when you have your bin spread to five or 10 different packing houses in the valley, it's very difficult.

So I called the macro bin salesman, I said, "Hey, what's the least popular color bin you got?"

And he said, "Well, I got this ugly ass color, you're not even gonna want it."

I say if it's ugly, I don't even need to see it.

Give me 500 of those.

And it turns out it's this, it's called safety purple, but I mean it's ideal, right?

And it looks badass going down the road, all that stuff.

It wasn't so simple to show up at a package house to says, "Hey, give us your ugly fruit and give it to free.

We're paying to haul it off."

But to handle the fruit hygienically, which as you saw when the fruit was being dumped out, before that fruit got tossed into that trailer, it was still at the same hygienic level of what goes to the grocery store.

And we ate some of that right off the line.

I mean it's awesome fruit.

It's the best fruit 'cause it's usually over ripe.

So these purple bins are really defining moment.

It was the first operational purchase that we actually had.

And we use these bins to haul from the packing house over here to Farmersville.

Usually the fruit from when it's picked to when it ends up down here in Farmersville is about 48 hours.

We work directly with the packing houses to know which varieties, 'cause there's certain varieties that are very difficult to dry, they're difficult to pit.

Fruit shows up here, it's staged the next day.

Within that 40 hour period, we're running the fruit across our line.

It gets dumped into a water bath.

There's a food grade hygienic solution in the water that helps sanitize the fruit in case it's picked up any bacteria or anything like that.

It then goes into what I call the D sticker (beep) blaster 69,000 XL.

It's something that Dave and I invented ourselves and it was to help solve that challenge to remove stickers from the fruit.

So you've seen those little PLUs that are on the fruit and we used to have to pull those off by hand, and if you can imagine that costs a lot.

But that's one of the reasons why the fruit's being thrown out because the economic imbalance is out of whack because now there's a sticker on it, 'cause it was originally intended to go to the grocery store, right?

And it's not so easy just, "Oh hey, packing house, don't put the sticker on."

It doesn't work like that, trust me.

(lighthearted music) - So I hope that a lot of people understand that all this fruit that instead of going to the trash, we could eat it.

And Ben is making something out of it where a lot of people, not just here locally, but just even other countries, they could taste this fruit, it's delicious.

Just because of the stainings or just because of the quality, how it looks outside, that it's still a good fruit.

(lighthearted music) - [Woman] Yeah, it's crazy.

I don't need, I don't wanna eat it.

I know.

I've tried.

I've tried to like them.

- This is the end of the sweetest one.

- What is the name of those?

- Snow chaser.

We will not have these anymore.

- So the fact that we are in all of these markets and talking to thousands of people on a weekly basis, it's really been a great opportunity, I think, to be advocates for Central Valley agriculture or agriculture in general.

I think there's a lot of, well I know, there's a lot of misconceptions that a lot of people in the city think about farming in general.

We have some great conversations with people and take the time to explain things to them that they really didn't know work that way.

I think that people think we're dousing all of our produce with toxins and things that they hear that just aren't true.

So it's really a great opportunity for us.

We feel like we're ambassadors for agriculture sometimes and we're able to really bring the truth to a lot of people, which is really great.

- So Central Valley, California, is that important?

It's interesting because to me this is home, to me it's the most beautiful place in the world.

To a lot of people it's, you're from California, what?

Well you're not from LA or San Francisco?

Those are great places but the best way I can describe where I'm from is have you eaten today, and what'd you eat?

And I guarantee something on your plate came from within 100 miles of where I'm standing.

And so it's very significant to the United States of America.

Yes, this is where a huge portion of food comes from.

To the world, we've been a leader in a lot of these industries for developing methods for farming and seeds and you name it, a lot of the innovation has come from here historically.

Not to say like, hey, we're the only ones doing amazing things.

That's not my point at all.

But we're globally significant 'cause we've been an agricultural leader for several generations.

And you can just even zoom down to the basic people, right?

Agriculture is our lifeblood.

It's a way of life.

Without it we don't have jobs, right?

Without it, there's no fruit to haul as a truck driver.

There's no roads to fix.

And our entire economy comes from agriculture here in Central Valley.

And I absolutely love it and I hope people can appreciate that too.

(lighthearted upbeat music) - [Narrator] Production funding for American Grown.

My job depends on AG, provided by James G. Parker Insurance Associates, ensuring and protecting agribusiness for over 40 years.

By GAR Bennett, the Central Valley's growing experts, more yield, less water.

Proven results.

We help growers feed the world.

By Brandt Professional Agriculture, proudly discovering, manufacturing and supplying the AG input that support the heroes who work hard to feed a hungry world every day.

By unWired Broadband.

Today's internet for rural central California.

Keeping valley agriculture connected since 2003.

By Hodges Inc.

Battery Storage Systems.

Would you rather invest in PG and E's infrastructure, or your own?

By Harrison Co. Providing family farms with the insights they need to make the best possible strategic M and A and financial decisions.

By Sierra Valley Almonds.

Dedicated to sustainable agriculture and water efficiency for a brighter farming future.

By Cal-Pacific Supply.

Providing agriculture the field supplies needed to keep field operations on track.

And by Valley Air Conditioning and Repair.

Family owned for over 50 years, dedicated to supporting agriculture and the families that grow food for a nation.