For more than 30 years, Tree-Ripe has brought fresh citrus, peaches and more to Wisconsin

When Tree-Ripe Fruit Co. got its start in 1990, it was just a truck of fruit and an advertisement in the paper. People showed up for the fresh tree-ripe citrus and a business was born.

Customers have continued to show up in droves year after year. Today, Tree-Ripe offers a variety of fruits and nuts direct from farm to consumer every season. Since 2017, Tiernan Paine of Wauwatosa has been president (and truck driver or forklift operator as needed) of the company his grandfather, Gordon Paine, founded in Johnson Creek.

Paine criss-crosses the country to create relationships with farmers. Peaches are consistently their top seller, but they’ve increased options to include Michigan blueberries, Florida citrus, Meyer lemons, honey, pears, pistachios, pecans and avocados.

While it's a tradition for many, and people still line up at stops in Wisconsin, Illinois, Minnesota, Iowa and Michigan’s Upper Peninsula for their boxes, Tree-Ripe now also ships direct to consumers and offers farm share memberships plus specialty options as things become available. Among the newest options is a partnership with fourth-generation Dickinson Family Farms in California to offer specialty organic boxes featuring organic citrus and organic avocado varieties including Gem, Reed and Zutano, as they're available. Those organic boxes began shipping in April to customers nationwide, with prices starting at $65.

More than 200 stops are planned throughout the Midwest for this year’s Georgia peach season, including dozens in the Milwaukee area , with deliveries continuing through Aug. 5. Michigan blueberries are expected around July 4. This season, Tree-Ripe also will be at the Oconomowoc Farmers' Market, 116 W. Wisconsin Ave., Oconomowoc from 8 a.m. to noon July 13 and 30 and Aug. 3.

“This year we’re delivering 2.5 million to 3 million freestone Georgia peaches. It's a lot, definitely, but worth the effort,” Paine said, noting that after last year’s abysmal peach season, this year’s bountiful crop looks to be one of the best they’ve had in decades. “If people are on the fence and thinking about getting peaches, this is the year to do it."

Paine recently talked about Tree-Ripe and the outlook for this year's crop of peaches.

How this family has fed others for three generations

Our company was founded back in 1990 by my grandfather. We were based out of Johnson Creek. That’s where I grew up, in that area. He started bringing Florida citrus back in the '80s. He worked for some Florida citrus groves that would sell to church groups and schools in Ohio and Indiana. They were trying to convince him to do this in Wisconsin. He could see the quality was not the same as what you would find in the grocery store; it was so much better.

They put an ad in the newspaper. People showed up. It just snowballed from there. We did a few seasons of citrus and moved into peaches. The number one thing people wanted was Georgia peaches.

I worked on trucks in this business as a teenager, and in 2012 I took over operations and ended up buying out the company in 2017.

What he's learned about selling direct to consumers

The exact problem is food grown for the grocery retail chain is grown for transportation, shelf life and cold storage. It does affect the quality of what you’re eating. If you go to the grocery and you get two peaches and they don’t taste good, you throw them away and move on. We found growers who were growing unique and wonderful things we loved. We brought those to customers.

We now have a fall and winter season, but our busiest time is the summer. It comes from a passion of finding amazing things that are being grown and being able to connect customers to products.

In the very beginning, it was just my grandfather. He set up as many drop points as he could do, a couple weeks' worth of stops. He would repeat in the winter. As we grew, we brought on another driver. It has slowly evolved, adding where we could. For a long time we were just in Wisconsin and Illinois. Now we’ve expanded to (stops in) Minnesota, Iowa and the U.P. (plus farm boxes shipped nationwide).

What you need to know about this year’s bumper peach crop

Last year was probably one of the worst seasons, we lost probably about 92% of the peach crop in the South. You really couldn’t have a more stark contrast between two seasons. Compare that to this year, I don’t think they lost one peach. The weather was perfect. It has been a beautiful season. What we’re seeing is outstanding quality, beautiful peaches. We expect that all season. It is a great year for peaches.

How they get the peaches to customers

We made a trip in May when the clingstones begin harvest. We don’t work with those, but we took staff down for training. We went down to pick up our first load of peaches in June. It is nice to drive down, pick up a load and stay on the farm. I’m also a Class A truck driver. I do a little bit of everything. When we go down, we stay on the farm in the farmhouse, directly across the street are peach trees. It is about 14 to 15 hours of drive time.

This is not the first farm we started with; there are only a handful of commercial growers in Georgia. We outgrew the first farm and they directed us to the Pearson family. My grandfather and the gentleman running the farm had similar ideals. Right now at Pearson Farm, it is a fifth-generation peach-farming family.

We sell everything on our peach stops by 25-pound boxes. This year there are no limits. We do some pop-ups, and that is a different style. You can get a 4-pound bag for $12. We do some pop-ups in Shorewood, Oconomowoc, Racine, Madison and Lake Geneva. People can find those on our website, tree-ripe.com . We have our map page with our events listed. You can see exactly what we have.

Does he ever get tired of peaches?

You never get sick of a sweet, juicy, Georgia peach. That never gets old. We do preserve them, make jam. We love all the things with the peaches.

How he finds farmers and fruits

It is a slow process. When there might be a product we are considering, we start sourcing by going to a region. So for pistachios, we found amazing pistachios in New Mexico. That’s our growing region. Then it is literally going to farms and finding the right partner. We know the type of grower we want to work with, and we have to find someone who is willing to work with us and has a similar viewpoint on how things should be grown, for quality not quantity.

Why you should try freestone peaches

If you’ve had a clingstone, they're a pain in the butt to work with. The fruit sticks to the pit. The clingstone doesn't have the flavor and sugar that the freestone do. We feel like if you want the best experience, the freestone are easier to work with for preserving, plus better flavor and sugar. People preserve them, they freeze well, but the number one way is to eat them fresh.

How organic avocados became the newest addition

It stemmed from trying to find organic growers. That’s been something that’s been asked about by a lot of our customers. I started working with a farm in southern California originally on Meyer lemons. They grow a lot and also work with smaller growers who don’t have picking, packing and distributing. He has access to a lot of different farms. The region they’re in, San Diego County, is like the Mediterranean. They have hills, the ocean. It is a beautiful location for growing different fruits.

We wanted to put together an organic program. People can get a sampling of what is in season and some individual things (not sold at stands) with our farm-style CSA boxes. These avocados, they’re wonderful. In the grocery store you’re going to get a basic one that will be very old. These are harvested on the farm, picked and packed and shipped to people direct. We found them to be delicious and super creamy, and you have quite a few different varieties of avocado. That has been popular.

We are right now getting Gem avocados. Next is a Reed avocado, almost looks like a dinosaur egg, very cool.

What he’s looking forward to next

I think of our fall pears, which come from a third-generation farmer in the northwest. His farm is at the base of Mount Hood. They’re the most incredible pears. Then we move into citrus season. There’s been a big boom in Satsuma mandarin production in north Florida and creeping into Georgia. We’ve fallen in love with those. And then super juicy and another favorite, in the spring we do an heirloom navel orange, your classic orange variety. That is phenomenal.

Fork. Spoon. Life. explores the everyday relationship that local notables have with food. To suggest future personalities to profile, email clewis@journalsentinel.com .

This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: For more than 30 years, Tree-Ripe has brought fresh citrus, peaches and more to Wisconsin