Bakers Journal

Sun-Rype celebrates 75th anniversary by fighting child hunger

June 29, 2021
By Bakers Journal

Image courtesy of Sun-Rype

Sun-Rype, a Canadian fruit-based food and beverage manufacturer, announced they are celebrating 75 years as a long-standing Canadian brand selling fruit juices and snack products since 1946.

To celebrate this milestone, SunRype has partnered with Food Banks Canada’s After The Bell Program, which helps to fight child hunger. The program provides 150,000 healthy, child-friendly food packs, which will include SunRype’s Fruit to Go snacks, to Canada’s most vulnerable children when school food programs are closed throughout the summer of 2021.

“In celebration of our 75th anniversary, we are excited to partner with the After The Bell Program. Our company has always been committed to giving back to our communities and helping families live healthier and happier lives,” said Lesli Bradley, SunRype President in a press release. “During these unprecedented pandemic times it is even more critical than ever before to ensure that our children in need have access to wholesome food,” said Bradley. “The Fruit to Go snacks and monetary contribution that SunRype provided to the After The Bell program will have a positive impact on thousands of Canadian children this summer.

SunRype has been an active and generous contributor to many local, provincial, and national groups including Food Banks, JDRF, Kelowna Gospel Mission, the United Way, YMCA, BC Cancer Society, and a range of youth sport organizations as well.

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The company grew out of the fresh fruit business in the Okanagan Valley of British Columbia when B.C.’s fruit growers created a company called BC Fruit Processing Limited and bought two juice plants in Kelowna, B.C. They began turning fresh-from-the-orchard apples, into 100 per cent apple juice and applesauce. They named the apple juice SunRype. By the mid 1950s, the SunRype brand had become a household name in Western Canada, resulting in the company renaming itself in 1959 to Sun-Rype Products Ltd.

To learn more about Food Band Canada’s After The Bell program visit https://afterthebell.foodbankscanada.ca.

SunRype currently has over 400 employees that operate out of its original 1946 Kelowna-based plant, which has expanded to a 143,000 square foot facility. It includes apple processing equipment, six beverage packaging lines, a can line, and three food production lines.


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