A new cherry vinegar produced in Northport will be available for people to try as soon as April.
Sarah and Phil Hallstedt, owners of Hallstedt Homestead Cherries, are also the founders of their newest business venture, Red Truck Orchards. With the cherry season being short and sweet, their newest project will allow people to taste and enjoy local cherries all-year round.
Phil said Red Truck Orchards was created to strengthen and support the community of local cherry growers as well as his family, neighbors, and friends. He explained how small farms are the backbone of communities and have been facing tough times as both the rising costs and global market is making it a struggle to keep farms afloat.
Keeping this in mind, Red Truck Orchards will collaborate with family farms and pay them a fair price for their hard work. By working with other farms, it will help families to stay in business and keep local food available while also ensuring cherry orchards are thriving for generations to come.
“A lot of our story is around the current cherry situation, especially for tarts with farmers, and not getting a good enough price to cover costs,” Phil said. “We’re super excited about it. We have poured our hearts into this effort. We call it Red Truck Orchards because we hope to see a group of orchards that we’ll collaborate with to source the cherries. They will then be able to provide us with their name and their history, their century farms, whatever it might be, and we’ll incorporate that into the branding… That’s our mission, to strengthen and support local farms in northwest Michigan.”
The cherry wine vinegar crafted from Montmorency cherries comes packed with health benefi ts galore. The product is rich in antioxidants, particularly anthocyanins, which are known for their antiinflammatory properties, and regular consumption may support overall health, reduce inflammation and improve digestion. Phil said the vinegar, which has no artificial additives, flavors, or dyes, utilizes cherries with the skins on that is first fermented into a cherry wine, and then once again into the vinegar.
The final taste is a balance of sweet and tart subtle cherry fruit flavors that pairs nicely with salad dressings, marinades, and even as added flavor in non-alocholic drinks. According to Michigan State University research, Red Truck Orchards cherry vinegar contains more antioxidant compounds than apple cider, red wine, and white wine vinegars.
“It has all the health benefits of cherries which are designated as a superfruit…” Phil said. “Even looking at wine vinegars, like a white or red wine vinegar, cherry vinegar blows it out of the water, it has a much higher concentration of antioxidants and it’s 100% natural.”
In order to make the vinegar a reality, the Hallstedt’s had to transform last summer one of the warehouses on their property into the production facility that it is today. Just this month, the facility completed and passed a health and food safety inspection, and now operations can commence to produce more product for the months ahead. The vinegar will be available online via Red Truck Orchards website, and will eventually be for sale at local farm markets and other locations like Tom’s Food Market.
“We are in production now for our first batch of vinegar at our facility,” Phil said. “The vinegar will be available en masse in April.”
In July of 2024, the Hallstedt’s hosted a soft launch of their vinegar at their “Cherry-Ganza” event, where attendees tried cherry based-meals by Detroit chef Jimmy Schmidt. The vinegar was incorporated into the recipes and people were able to try some of the product on its own for the first time, with Phil noting that not only did people love the taste, but that they sold out of the bottles that they did have within just a few days.
In addition to the start of their official vinegar production, Sarah will offer her popular sourdough workshops this month and next, with specific dates and registration listed on the Hallstedt Homestead website. This summer, Hallstedt Homestead Cherries will still have their U-Pick cherries and flowers, but they’ll also have their new vinegar and products related to the launch, like a cherry slushy, available at the farm. And with the recent approval of Leelanau Township’s farm stay campgrounds amendment, Phil said they plan to continue in their pursuit for a special land use permit in the agricultural district, which was an idea he proposed years ago as a way for farmers to generate non agricultural, onfarm income.
“We want to maintain our rural agricultural community. If we don’t have a business model for these farms to thrive, they’re going away,” he said. “We are literally betting the farm on this being successful. We hope it can help us and other local farms… Right now it’s just trying to be a small business and get moving.”
Red Truck Orchards will be taking online preorders for its cherry wine vinegar until more inventory is available in April. To learn more about the vinegar and product line, go to www.redtruckorchards. com/
Phil and Sarah Hallstedt are pictured with their homemade cherry wine last summer while looking out a window of the pole barn that would be repurposed into the vinegar production facility that it is today. Courtesy photo
