Small Town News

Eastern Washington University grads follow the harvest to Yakima Valley and back

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Josh and Matt Horsley grew up on a fruit farm in the Yakima Valley, surrounded by the best Mother Nature had to offer. From their early days, they helped their father harvest hundreds of thousands of pounds of fruit every year.

While they were raised among delicious fresh fruit, the twin brothers soon learned not everyone knew what fresh, tree-ripened fruit tasted like. They moved to Cheney to attend Eastern Washington University, and a couple years later Josh's new wife Marisa did the unthinkable.

"The first winter we were married, she brought home apples from the grocery store and I was like, 'What are you doing? I can't eat these,'" he said with a laugh.

Marisa remembers calling him a fruit snob, but the Horsleys' low tolerance for less-than-fresh fruit has been a central factor in the success of their fledgling fruit delivery business.

Follow the Harvest was born back at their family's Yakima Valley orchards, when the brothers sold a lug of cherries to their neighbor at market price. The price was substantially higher than they received from a warehouse that shipped most of their fruit to grocery stores all over North America. That's when they started thinking about eliminating the middle man and selling the fruit directly to consumers.

"My father doesn't have the time (to sell the fruit himself) because he's growing and it's a fulltime job," JoshHorsley said. "So with him growing the fruit, it gives my brother and I and my wife time to sell the fruit."

After they graduated from EWU last year, with business degrees to boot, the Horsleys launched Follow the Harvest last spring.

The business delivers boxes of fresh fruit to customers' homes or offices weekly, with a different fruit each week. Their main product is a full summer plan, with 16 weeks of delivery of four-pound boxes of different fruits as they ripen including cherries, peaches, pears, apples and more. The majority of the fruit is picked at the Horsley family orchards and from their brother-in-law's orchards, with a few fruits coming from neighbors in the Yakima Valley.

The Horsleys decided to offer delivery to the Spokane and West Plains area, and started posting fliers and contacting businesses to drum up some customers. The Horsleys said they were confident in the premise of their business, but some of the logistics were challenging their first year out.

"Before the summer started, people loved the idea and people were signing up for it, but we had no idea what we were doing," Josh Horsley said. "We knew we had good fruit, we just didn't know how the whole delivery part would go With one big cargo van and help from family back at the farm, Follow the Harvest had a successful first year, gaining 150 customers and even a little profit, the Horsleys said.

As the summer season approaches, Josh Horsley said they're loolking to grow in their second year of operation.

"We're pushing a little bit harder, just going to more businesses," he said. "Now that we have the confidence in the whole delivery system and we know it works, we're a lot more confident in marketing the business."

The Horsleys said the vast majority of last year's customers are back for another year of fruit deliveries, and a referral program is bringing more. While the business is currently just family, they plan to eventually hire employees and expand the delivery area.

For now though, they're happy to bring fresh fruit to the residents of the West Plains and Spokane.

"Basically we're getting fresh fruit, as fresh as we can get it, delivered straight to our customers' doorstep," Josh Horsley said. "We want to make it as convenient as possible for them so that they can experience what tree-ripened fruit should taste like."

For more information, visit www.followtheharvest.net.

Becky Thomas can be reached at becky@cheneyfreepress.com.



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© 2011 Cheney Free Press Cheney, Washington. All Rights Reserved. This content, including derivations, may not be stored or distributed in any manner, disseminated, published, broadcast, rewritten or reproduced without express, written consent from DAS.

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