Just Peachy: Berrien Springs farm will expand with $175,000 state grant

For nearly 100 years a family farm in southern Michigan has been perfecting what it does best — growing, picking and packing fresh apples and peaches.

Now, the Hildebrand Fruit Farms $4 million expansion project in Berrien Springs has gotten a boost  from the Michigan Department of Agriculture and Rural Development’s Food and Agriculture Investment Program.

The farm has been awarded a $175,000 grant from MDARD to help enlarge and redesign its fruit packing operation, an improvement which stands to benefit growers throughout West Michigan, says Mike Hildebrand, owner of Hildebrand Fruit, LLC.

 Hildebrand says about half of the product packed is homegrown on the farm, “and  then we work with probably 25 other growers—  from  Berrien County to Grand Rapids, Shelby and Hart—  to help store, pack and market their crops.”

The expansion, he says,  will help the farm “position ourselves for the next generation, our employees, and our farm partners.”

What’s happening: Hildebrand Fruit Farms has received a $175,000 state grant to help with an expansion. Construction of a 23,808-square-foot packing facility will expand the farm’s 60-year-old packing facility and also create a more efficient layout for the whole operation. Site clearance is expected to begin this autumn with project completion anticipated by July 2026. “We doubled our storage three years ago, with no grants, just private funding. The new packing shed is a separate project, he says.

“The building that we’re currently packing in is 60 plus years old. It’s been added on to six times, and it is cramped. It’s not big enough for what we’re doing now,” Hildebrand says. ““I could easily spend $500,000 renovating this building with new concrete and new refrigeration and a new roof and all the things that it needs, and it doesn’t change our layout or our size, and those are the two biggest problems that we’re facing right now.” Starting over with a new building makes more sense, he says.

The back story: Michigan, the nation’s second-largest producer of apples, boasts one of the richest and most diverse fruit industries in the United States. According to data from the USDA’s National Agriculture Statistics Services, Michigan farms harvested more than 1.36 billion pounds of apples in 2022. There are 17.6 million apple trees on 850 apple-growing farms in Michigan. That same year, Michigan produced more than 23 million pounds of peaches valued at more than $20 million. Those peaches included world-famous varieties developed in Michigan such as Redhaven and Flamin’ Fury. Hildebrand grows and packs both apples and peaches.

Funding: Nate Peeters, deputy communications director at MDARD, says the state’s entire fruit industry is bolstered by projects like the expansion at Hildrenbrand Fruit Farms and the Food and Agriculture Investment Program. Since fiscal year 2019, MDARD has awarded more than $5.7 million in FAIP grants, which are part of more than $184 million MDARD  delivered over the past seven years to help local communities build infrastructure, promote agricultural prosperity, ensure food safety and create jobs.

“(These) grants advance MDARD’s broader goals of strengthening Michigan’s food supply chain, creating more economic opportunities for Michigan growers, and giving Michigan families more access to locally grown foods,” says MDARD Director Tim Boring. The Food and Agriculture Investment Program is a cornerstone of MDARD’s economic development strategy.”

Says Hildebrand: ‘I understand these are tax dollars and that you have to spend the tax dollars wisely. But this isn’t  a gift to the Hildebrands. This is an investment to the Hildebrands and the Schillings and the Umlors and the DeRuiters and all the other farmers that we work with,  and it’s an investment in our employees as well. 

“This is allowing us to expand and employ people, and those people depend on us to make a good living.”

More: Hildebrand’s has two locations.  The packing facility at 3255 E. Shawnee Rd., Berrien Springs. The home farm at 10267 Garr Rd., Berrien Springs.  

“Our motto in life and in business is:’You will know us by our fruit,” he says. “ You know, actions speak louder than words. My grandparents and my parents worked their tails off,” he says. “This is our leg of the race, and we’re trying to run it as best we possibly can.”