Stoneridge Orchards Reduced-Sugar Dried Berries Review

Stoneridge Orchards Reduced-Sugar Dried Berries Review

Berries are like nature’s little gift to a sweet tooth. They’re cute, have vibrant colors, and offer a sweet and tart flavor all in one.  They add sweetness to a garden salad, can be mashed up for a yummy smoothie, are portable little snacks to offer energy, and help make Grandma’s Jell-O molds look much more appetizing.  Berries are pretty awesome, but they aren’t very portable.  Sure, you can grab a handful of boysenberries to take on your bike ride.  But you’ll have a mushy pocket lined with boysenberry goop. You can plop strawberries in a bag and take them for lunch, but they’ll get smushed and bruised. Berries are NOT travel friendly….unless you dry them out first!

Stoneridge Orchards is a farm in central Washington state that’s been family owned since 1962. To say they know berries and fruits is an understatement. They grow all-natural and organic premium cherries, blueberries, raspberries, apples and pears.  And they produce over 10 million pounds of tart cherries per year. Yah, these folks know berries, alright.  They also know the benefits of dried fruits, and recognize that most dried fruit is very high in sugar.  So, they used their berry skills and reduced the sugar in their dried cherries and blueberries.  We’re about to enjoy these reduced-sugar dried cherries and blueberries!

Reduced Sugar Dried Cherries

Jeni’s take: I’m not that big on cherries, but I really enjoyed these!  They have almost a gummy candy texture, which was a great surprise! They were tart and sweet, with the perfect balance of the two. In fact, I spent a good minute just smelling the bag of cherries, because it was so pleasant! I can totally see putting these on my yogurt in the morning and LOVING  it!

Jason’s take: Quite honestly, I have never had dried fruit like these! These remind me a lot of fruit snacks…except these are actually fruit! These are great to snack on alone, or to add a fun twist to your cereal, yogurt, and salads. Immediately after snacking on these alone for a good five minutes, I decided to put a bowl of cottage cheese. I threw some of these dried cherries on there to make my cottage cheese better… a burst of sweetness and tartness! Simply fun to eat.

Reduced Sugar Dried Blueberries

Jeni’s take:  Blueberries are my favorite berry. I’ve honestly never had dried blueberries, but I absolutely love these!  These are sweet and juicy, which was really surprising to me because they are reduced-sugar and dried. I don’t know how they do it, but I will definitely be buying more of these dried blueberries.

Jason’s take: These dried blueberries feature a very similar texture to the dried cherries. Very gummy! Not to mention, these dried blueberries taste so fresh. With most other dried fruit brands, the fruit is so dehydrated that you’re left with a super dry and stale piece of fruit. Stoneridge Orchards somehow keeps their dried fruit juicy and plump for an amazingly fresh taste. Big fan of these! My nieces and nephews snacked on these thinking they were fruit snacks…that’s how good they are.

Berries are awesome. These dried berries are amazing, because you don’t have to refrigerate them, they will last longer than fresh berries, and you don’t lose flavor at all from the drying process. We’re super impressed and just found our new road trip essential, hiking snack and substitute to shoving candy in our faces when we are being fat an lazy and want something sweet!