Cherry Republic is officially in a new era after hosting a community open house Tuesday to introduce its massive new Empire manufacturing expansion.
“We believe in growth and we believe in passing cherries on to everyone in the country,” Cherry Republic owner Bob Sutherland said.
The Leelanau-based jam, salsa, and candy company has come a long way since Sutherland began selling cookies and T-shirts out of his 1972 Toyota Tercel in 1988-89, to a manufacturing facility occupying nearly 50,000 square feet, producing thousands of edible products every day.
The open house welcomed a couple hundred community members and dozen of staff.
“(My advice) is to start small and keep coming to work every day and you’ll be impressed if you’re able to keep coming to work for 37 years, you never know what will happen? From small beginnings, grow great things,” Sutherland said.
For the first time since 2011, Cherry Republic has its entire operation under one roof.
Cherry Republic expanded its Empire campus for the fourth time with over $3 million in investments, breaking ground last December.
The new 16,000-square-foot project will expand Cherry Republic’s immediate footprint to 50,000 square feet.
Cherry Republic also received a $150,000 grant from the Michigan Department of Agriculture and Rural Development as part of an investment program. The sum is included in the expansion project, according to MDARD.
Cherry Republic has grown every year since its first store in Glen Arbor in 1998 and now has eight stores across the state, with the newest one located on Mackinac Island.
The new facility is expected to bring over 100 employees both new and current, all under one roof, especially for the busy winter season that is now underway. New improvements to the Empire campus includes storage coolers that sit at over 2,000-square-foot, along with several massive sorting and production areas, along with machinery that can produce 3,500 bags of pretzels a day, if needed, or 4,000 jars of cherry salsa, for example.
Cherry Republic produces the vast majority of all products at Empire since the expansion, except for candy, which is made offsite, while being sorted and packaged at the Empire facility.
The holiday season accounts for nearly half of the company’s production and business, with 30% of all sales coming online.
Over 12 years ago, Cherry Republic had a decision to make. Stay local to Leelanau, or head to the big city of Traverse City, Cadillac, Grand Rapids, or elsewhere.
“We chose Empire because we all love this community, it’s where we grew up. We want to support the community and it’s fun to have this recent expansion because it feels like a total partnership. It’s a full-circle moment coming together to be part of the community. We’re part of them and they’re part of us,” Cherry Republic CEO Todd Ciolek said. “It doesn’t make a lot of business sense, but it makes 100% sense that it fits our core values of the company … From just starting out with a couple paddles stirring around the salsa and hoping it cools off in a few days to bringing state-of-the-art equipment into Leelanau County. It’s just really exciting for our staff to be working with all sorts of new equipment.”
Sutherland admits that none of this expansion could have happened without the efforts of Vice President Veronica “Roni” Hazelton, who is credited with growing the company’s manufacturing capacity since 2005.
“We’ve cried so much together,” Sutherland said. “(Hazelton) manages all operations and makes everything happen. She is a superstar.”
Cherry Republic reported purchasing slightly over 700,000 pounds of cherries, along with 91,000 orders shipped in 2024, and purchasing over a million recycled jars. Over 60,000 of those order occurred in quarter four 2024. Those numbers are expected to increase, hopefully, with the recent improvement.
“I grew up downstate, moved here 29 years ago. And to live and work in this community, raising my kids here has been such a joy and a gift. I wouldn’t trade it for the world. And to see this company grow the way that it has, the core values here are the core values that I embody, and I couldn’t think of a better place to work,” Hazelton said. “We keep moving forward, and constant is the only change, and we love that. We thrive on that.”
