Articles by Pam Montgomery, Founder & CEO

I’ve wanted to offer wine at Chukar for years for several reasons. Most notably, fine wine and fine chocolate just go together. A match made in heaven!

Cherry harvest was late this summer and extended well into July—weeks longer than normal. August was full of anticipation and action. Our team was in a flurry of activity, making way for the 2020 holiday season, hiring, training, and taking long-needed R&R breaks. As an added layer, Chukar team members with children were nervously prepping for the start of virtual school.

The 2020 Washington Cherry Harvest ushered in quality fresh cherries in late May to early June from California, but the Northwest’s cooler than normal temperatures are delivering later than normal harvests in Washington and Oregon.

In art, cherries depict carefree joy, exotic beauty, passion and romance, the partnership of two, and the spirit of a clustered triad. To me, CHERRIES ARE THE JAM. But I’m not alone in this. Here are just a few lovely CHERRY references to muse upon.

This is a CHUKAR OPERATIONS update from rural Prosser in Washington cherry country. It’s an interesting time for food and confectionery manufacturers of all sizes. Considered ‘essential’, food processing continues. Yet, most everything has changed inside any manufacturing facility.

In the early 1990s when Chukar Cherries was a fledging enterprise on our family farm, I was looking for a skilled fruit illustrator to bring the various cherry varietals, apples, and berries to life.

I believe each of us are unique in what energizes us in terms of foods we eat, the exercise we need, and the effect of nature and its beauty in feeding us joy. There’s plenty of healthy reasons to eat a cherry or more daily.

Washington State's governor issued physical distancing and subsequent stay-at-home guidelines. Overnight, the Chukar Management Team had to reevaluate everything—current operations and payroll, There's no road map for this. It is simply people improvising with a common goal of safety, survival, community connection, teamwork.