Got Milk?' guru is fully behind 'Eat Red' theme, health benefits.

"The first year we got a tremendous
amount of publicity. I'm hoping we go to
that next step of cherries being used as
ingredients, and taking up more shelf
space in the market place."
- Jeff Manning (above)
cherry industry marketing specialist

It’s probably a good thing Jeff Manning doesn’t live in Leelanau County.

We interviewed Manning over the phone for this story. He picked up while tossing a Frisbee to his chocolate lab, Marlow, named after the town in England where his wife was born.

Manning was in a park by his home in the San Francisco Bay area, but as usual always ready to talk cherries. He’s able to market what is mostly a Midwestern crop from a West Coast town largely because of the Internet.

And besides, he believes his emphasis must be on cherry consumers, present and future, to assure the livelihood of cherry growers, present and future.

Manning is the “Got Milk?” guru who hitched his wagon to cherries a year ago, starting with a much ballyhooed, glitzy promotion that started in New York and through a Chicago public relations firm was taken across the country. He considers his job “completely apolitical,” and along that line takes little time before answering when asked how best to boost cherry sales

“I think the answer is by not being concerned about what the cherry farmers feel, and concentrating on the consumer,” he offers, between Frisbee tosses.

While his response may sound cavalier when read in Leelanau County on a snowy February day during National Cherry Month, such an assertion would be incorrect.

Cherry farmers through the Cherry Marketing Institute hired Manning to stake out a new personna for cherries, one of a “Heart Smart” fruit that tastes good. While grandma’s favorite pie filling may still have appeal, it isn’t selling.

And what better place to push a healthy product than in the health-nut capital of America, California?

It would also be incorrect to believe Manning has not quickly grown an affinity for all things cherry, including those grandfatherly cherry farmers in Leelanau County. He leaves the impression that he’s sold not only on cherries, but all parts of the industry, including the farmers who own Leelanau hillsides that will only remain in orchards if he succeeds.

Mannning shouldn’t live in Leelanau County for the same reason a surgeon shouldn’t date his patient. He’s got enough things to worry about.

Growers have taken notice of Manning’s priority, and seemed to overwhelmingly endorse it at the Northwest Michigan Orchard and Vineyard Show last month at the Grand Traverse Resort. That’s where Manning offered a quasi-State of the Cherry address to explain his progress.

“I think the reason the orchard show went so well is because they saw that I was marketing cherries,” said Manning. “I don’t want to be a politician; I want to be a marketer.”

Bingham Township grower Joe Grant has spent his life in cherries — plenty long enough to understand that growing a bumper crop of cherries and making a profit off them are two entirely different subjects. He’s in full support of the new direction taken in cherry marketing, even if it means paying an additional half-cent per pound surcharge collected from the same farmers who voted in the then-new tax two years ago.

“We’re just hoping Jeff Manning does well,” said Grant. “He has all the contacts.”

Others in the industry seemed just as supportive — and patient — when contacted, including former Northwest Michigan Horticultural Research Station director Jim Nugent, Leelanau Fruit Co. owner Glenn LaCross, and Cherry Bay Orchards owner Don Gregory.

And patience will be needed, Manning said. “We’ve said from the beginning this is not a short-term effort,” he said, likening his challenge to changing the direction of large ship.

Perhaps what made his switch from promoting milk to cherries so easy — other than yearning after 14 years to push “anything that isn’t white and sold by the gallon,” as he explained it — was the growing mountain of research proving that cherries are an extremely healthy food source.

Manning envisions the cherry becoming an icon of healthy eating in a world growing more and more health conscious. After all, researchers have proven cherries as deterrents to joint ailments such as arthritis and gout. And in providing antioxidants, the ingredient proven to help prevent cancer, cherries are marginally behind blueberries but ahead of cranberries.

As a testament to the direction being taken by the industry, the American Heart Association last week declared tart cherries — Montmorency tart cherries, to be more precise — within its group of preferred foods. The Cherry Marketing Institute applied for the designation, which Manning said will help open the hearts of consumers.

That red theme will be carried into “Eat Red Week,” when cherries will join with other healthy fruits in a promotion Manning believes will carry more impact because of teamwork. “If we did ‘Eat Cherry Week,’ they would say, ‘Oh, no, here’s another commodity board idea,’” said Manning.

In fact, Manning does not envision the tart cherry breaking away from other healthy fruits. Instead, he sees the cherry combining with them to create an upswell of products that will gradually increase demand.

For instance, popular Jamba franchises turn out blended smoothies by the thousands. Manning envisions a “Red Alert” smoothie made with red berries catching on with consumers.

“They use massive quantities of fruit. I think we’re going to succeed as a blended fruit, rather than a stand-along fruit,” said Manning.

For cherries, the reasoning might follow the age-old advice, “If you can’t beat them, join them.” Other fruits, such as blueberries and cranberries, had head starts in promoting their healthy sides, and now have bigger budgets to continue their momentum.

While Ocean Spray for years has been a best friend to cranberry growers, the Highbush Blueberry Council was approved in 2000 when growers voted to place a $12 per ton surcharge on themselves. The council operated on a 2007 budget of $4.5 million.

The per-ton surcharge paying for cherry promotion results in $1.2 million in revenue — enough to run a public relations campaign, but not enough to mount a nationwide advertising blitz. Consider that tart cherries had a farm production value of $61.4 million annually last year. In comparison, processed cranberries generated $228 million, juice grapes approximately $80 million and cultivated blueberries $372 million, according to an “Economic Analysis of the Tart Cherry Federal Marketing Orders” prepared for the Cherry Marketing Institute.

Blueberries in particular have benefitted from recent health marketing efforts with more demand and higher prices paid to growers.

If you wonder why the “Got Milk?” slogan could be promoted in so many venues, consider that the farm value of milk production averages $26 billion.

But Manning, who estimates that promoting cherries constitutes about 60 percent of his consulting time, believes cherries are making headway into the hearts of consumers. He points to a modest uptick in consumption last year, an important change in direction considering that during the decade ending in 2006 the cherry industry lost about one-quarter of its market. Annual consumption of cherries in the United States peaked at 1.05 pounds per person in 1976 and 1998, but took a dive after a 2002 crop was wiped out by frost and poor pollination.

Food manufacturers went to other products such as the surging blueberry when cherries grew expensive and hard to find. It’s Manning’s job to bring them back, and he’s hopeful 2008 is the year to show real gains.

“The first year we got a tremendous amount of publicity. I’m hoping we go to that next step of cherries being used as ingredients, and taking up more shelf space in the market place,” said Manning.

Leelanau cherry growers share that hope.