Episode 142: Angela Hernandez and Jeri Elsasser

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A super sweet, easy to peel, gorgeous, delicious piece of fruit that gives you your daily dose of recommended Vitamin C? Yes please! There’s a lot to love about Trinity Fruit Company’s Big Honeys® Dekopon mandarins.

From conventional or organic stone fruit and pomegranates to citrus varieties like the dekopon mandarin, Trinity Fruit Company farms 18,000 acres of fruit year round in the central valley of California. One of the Produce Mom’s top items to try in 2021 is Trinity’s Big Honeys® Dekopon mandarins which are a Japanese-native hybrid mandarin. These delicious fruits are much larger than normal mandarins, about the size of a softball, and are easy to peel, seedless and very sweet.

Not only are Big Honeys® Dekopons humongous, they’re super easy to peel just by sticking your finger through the top knot of the peel. Angela loves to eat one after her workout as a light dinner, pair it with chocolate, or place it on salads. The Produce Moms just released a delicious recipe of overnight oats with pomegranates and Dekopons too!

Confused on the difference between a Big Honeys® and a Dekopon? Dekopons are the variety name of this type of fruit and Big Honeys® is the brand name of Trinity Fruit Company’s Dekopon mandarins. It’s the same correlation as Nike is to “shoes”. If someone asks you your favorite type of shoe and you say Nike, that’s your favorite brand of shoe. If you say sneaker, that’s your favorite type, or varietal, of shoe.

Episode 142 Angela Hernandez Quote

When the pandemic hit and Angela Hernandez was visiting friends in Los Angeles, she saw the huge lines of customers standing outside of farmer’s markets and wanted to come up with a way to help. Driving home, she got the idea for a produce subscription box and, after talking it over with Jeri and Trinity Fruit Company’s president David White, they decided to create The Fruitful Market.

It was through many FaceTime calls, research and long hours that they were able to launch The Fruitful Market last November, right before the holidays. First, they did a test run sending fruit boxes as gifts to David and Lisa White’s close friends and family, and they loved it. Next, the team opened up offering fruit boxes to the public and have had orders every single week since then. One of the benefits of the Fruitful Market is they offer fresh fruit all season long with all different types of fruit, giving customers access to new fruits they may have never tried before and helping them experiment in the kitchen with healthy, vibrant flavors.

There are three different box options. The Fruitful Market offers a season’s harvest box as a one-time shipment, which is usually an assortment of the season’s best available fruit items. A season’s harvest box subscription is also an option, which is a monthly delivery to your doorstep of the best items Trinity has available. Best of all, if you’re particular about the type of fruit you want in your box, you can customize to have one type of fruit or a specific variety in your box!

“The Fruitful Market box is just the beginning of something greater and it’s offering fresh fruits to anybody’s doorstep.” – Angela Hernandez (15:07-15:19)

Right now, The Fruitful Market is shipping citrus fruit. Their season’s harvest box has a compilation of hand picked blood oranges, Cara Cara oranges, navels, different mandarin varieties, lemons, Minneola tangelos, and much more! Next month, they’ll be debuting their Gold Nugget mandarin, so order your box now to taste what this new fruit has in store!

How to get involved

  • Join The Produce Moms Group on Facebook and continue the discussion every week!
  • Reach out to us – we’d love to hear more about where you are in life and business! Find out more here.

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Episode 142: Get Your Daily Dose Of Vitamin C From Mandarins The Size Of A Softball With Angela Hernandez, Director of Marketing And Jeri Elsasser, Creative Director for Trinity Fruit Company

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About Lori

Lori Taylor is the Founder & CEO of The Produce Moms. For ten years she sold fresh produce to over 300 grocery stores throughout the United States, and today she is fully focused on working with the produce supply chain, media, and government to increase fresh produce access & consumption in the US and around the globe. Connect with Lori on LinkedIn.

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