This Northport Farm Is Shifting Into Full Commercialization Mode For Its New Cherry Vinegar

October will be a month of quantum leaps for Leelanau County’s Red Truck Orchards.

The brand, which produces a cherry vinegar made with locally-grown cherries, soft-launched last summer and grew its presence at local farmers markets this year. Now owner Phil Hallstedt says the brand is “rapidly scaling up” production, which will involve full-scale online availability, shelf presence at local grocery and specialty stores, and even a retail presence downstate.

Hallstedt, a local cherry farmer who runs the Northport U-pick operation Hallstedt Homestead Cherries along with his wife Sarah, started toying around with a cherry vinegar in 2022. Several years, many batches, and much trial and error later, this summer marked the first time the Hallstedts were able to hit a production mileston.

“In July, we bottled 700 bottles, and that was our first true full batch of vinegar in this facility,” Hallstedt tells The Ticker, referring to the commercial production facility the Hallstedts built on their farm property. That facility got its approvals from the Michigan Department of Agriculture and Rural Development in January and started production in February. “The July batch sold out in about three weeks, utilizing mostly local farmers markets and sales here on the farm,” Hallstedt adds. “We did have a small amount – about 10 percent of the stock – that we put out on the internet through our website, and that drop sold out within 90 minutes.”

Selling quickly – and hearing positive things from customers – showed the Hallstedts there was demand, but they were limited for a few months by the chemistry of vinegar production. That process starts with the fruit – whole, pitted, skin-on tart cherries – which then go through a double fermentation. The first fermentation produces cherry wine. The second converts the alcohol to acetic acid, eventually producing vinegar as a byproduct.

Key to the second fermentation is what is known in the vinegar world as “the mother,” which Hallstedt describes as “a floating matrix of acetic acid bacteria.” It's the mother that acts on the alcohol and converts the ethanol to acetic acid, leading to vinegar. How much vinegar a commercial operation can produce is directly linked to how much mother is in the fermentation tanks – which, for the Hallstedts, wasn’t a lot.

“Now, we’ve finally got enough biomass of mother that we can move into some real online sales and also start looking at building out our distribution network,” Hallstedt says. In August, Red Truck Orchards produced about 2,700 bottles of vinegar. “And pretty soon, what we’ll be able to maintain is about 4,000 to 5,000 bottles per month,” Hallstedt adds. “That will happen here in October.”

For customers who have been waiting for the vinegar to be more widely available, Hallstedt says the shift will be clear very soon. In addition to the brand’s presence at local farmers markets, the vinegar will be available online. It will launch into a variety of specialty stores and small grocery stores in northern Michigan – including Oryana and Tom’s Food Markets – and even into a few stores “down around Detroit and Lansing.” The Hallstedts also plan to show off the vinegar at food shows around the country in hopes of catching the eye of chefs and culinary experts.

“Up until now, we’ve been trying to be pretty quiet about the vinegar, because we don't want to disappoint people by not having stock,” Hallstedt says. “But I think we're finally at a point where we can start spreading the word more.”

“The learning curve is steep,” Hallstedt acknowledges, when asked about implementing commercial production operations – to say nothing of things like shipping and logistics – on a small farm. Phil and Sarah have had help from Sam Reese, a craft beer industry veteran who came aboard last spring. And now, with a clear path forward, Hallstedt will soon hire a production manager. 

Challenge or not, Hallstedt paints the vinegar as a necessary chess move for Hallstedt-Homestead Cherries, which, like many local farms, has struggled with a few bad cherry seasons in a row. The farm invested heavily to come up with a cherry vinegar recipe and commercialize the project. 

“How the product is received in the market, and the demand for it, will dictate how quickly – or even if – we can recoup our investment,” he says. “It’s a brand-new product. It's not priced at the extreme high end of specialty vinegars, but it's also not a low-end product. And it’s a unique product, too, so who knows."

Based on early indicators, Hallstedt is optimistic his farm’s big bet will pay off. “I would hope that, maybe by mid-2026, we can break into the black,” he says.

Hallstedt is hopeful it can illuminate a path forward for farms like his to adapt and evolve. In fact, if Red Truck Orchards and its vinegar establish enough reach, Hallstedt has bigger dreams.

“Once we have enough volume that we're outpacing what we can provide cherries for, it’s absolutely the desire to bring in other farms,” Hallstedt says. “We've got to get consistent with production, and we’ve got to get distribution up to 100-200 plus stores before we can start saying, ‘Boy, we're going to need some additional cherries outside of what we can produce here on the farm.’ But I would hope we are there in 2026, maybe 2027.”