5,000 acres more, to be exact.

Shoreline Fruit, a manufacturer of dried fruits and fruit concentrates with processing facilities in Acme Township and Lyndonville, NY, this week anticipates final local approval of its Agricultural Processing Renaissance Zone (APRZ) designation.

The designation is essential to Shoreline’s expansion – itself necessary because the fruit processor recently added a major, albeit undisclosed, international retail chain to its customer base. The three-year contract for dried cherries will require the manufacturer to purchase and process significantly more raw product.

The pending designation would enable Shoreline to take advantage of a 15-year tax abatement for its drying operations, which would translate to $8 million in private investment for a new 40,000 square-foot-building addition, new drying equipment (with a $1.5 million price tag), and 45 to 70 new jobs – a mix of line work and managerial positions.

The expansion also would allow Shoreline to purchase 5,000 more acres of tart cherries each year. (The company currently procures $6.1 million of fruit annually from other local growers and processors beyond its own supply.)

Worth noting: The expansion and processing work could have gone to Shoreline’s processing facility in New York. Luckily, that didn’t happen. “We had really good cooperation from the state, county and local units of government from day one," says Nels Veliquette, Shoreline’s project manager and a member of one of the grower/owner families:

Food processing in Michigan is a $24.97 billion industry and has experienced annual growth of 3.7 percent since 2002, according to Mike DiBernardo, economic development specialist for the Michigan Department of Agriculture.

“We looked at how to continue to add value for growers and producers,” says DiBernardo. “We’re a state that does manufacturing very well, whether it’s cars, car bumpers, tires or food.”

“Shoreline Fruit is a huge, important part of the value-added component,” he adds. “It will be buying from a lot more producers, making a better, more consistent market for our growers. That’s huge.”

The situation is “profound positive” not only for the northern Michigan cherry industry but also for the region’s farmland preservation efforts, says Brian Bourdages, farmland protection specialist for the Grand Traverse Regional Land Conservancy and consulting staff to Acme Township’s Farmland Preservation Program. The Shoreline plant is located in the heart of the preservation area.

“It’s not just about protecting farmland for its open space and scenic value,” says Bourdages. “It also allows it to continue to be viable agricultural land.”

“This project was pushed ahead by the next generation of growers/owners,” says Veliquette. “We will have northern Michigan cherries in every part of the world. To me, that says we’ve arrived as the Cherry Capital of the World.”