Some businesses struggled during the COVID-19 pandemic. Cherry Republic got supercharged.

Earlier this month, the Michigan Department of Agriculture and Rural Development (MDARD) announced a $150,000 Food and Agricultural Investment Program grant to Cherry Republic. That money will go toward a substantial expansion of Cherry Republic’s production, storage, distribution, and fulfillment center in Empire, which will cost more than $2.8 million and add some 16,000 square feet of dry and cold storage to the existing 20,000-square-foot campus. It’s big growth, especially considering that Cherry Republic last expanded its fulfillment center just six years ago.

According to Roni Hazelton, Cherry Republic’s senior vice president of fulfillment, the company put the finishing touches on its previous fulfillment center expansion in 2019. The bigger facility was supposed to give the business plenty of room to grow, particularly in the area of “small package fulfillment,” or direct-to-consumer shipments of assorted cherry snacks, candies, jams, salsas, and gift boxes. What the Leelanau-based brand wasn’t expecting was a global pandemic.

“In 2020, when COVID hit, things changed so much, and we were blessed with really strong business in our small package fulfillment,” Hazelton says. “As a result, we ended up outgrowing that space very, very quickly.”

It was five years ago this month that businesses got hit with the COVID era's first round of stay-at-home orders. Per Hazelton, Cherry Republic’s various retail stores – including the flagship operation in Glen Arbor – felt the impact of those statewide orders like any other business. Quickly, though, Cherry Republic customers pivoted to ordering from the company’s website. “I think that a lot more customers found us online during that time, too,” she adds. In other words, brick-and-mortar traffic dropped, but small package fulfillment skyrocketed.

Five years later, Hazelton says online orders “continue to grow,” even long after retail traffic went back to normal. “Our retail business absolutely continues to thrive,” she says, noting that Cherry Republic will open a seventh brick-and-mortar location this May in Mackinaw City.

The growth on both fronts has Cherry Republic bursting at the seams. Hazelton says the company needs a “three-county wide” web of building leases just to give itself some breathing room.

“That’s challenging for us, because obviously, [being spread out] increases our transportation and our handling of our product,” Hazelton tells the Leelanau Ticker. “And then freezer space has just been very short up here in northern Michigan, too. Currently, when we purchase freezer goods – which we do a lot of – those are stored in freezers all over the place. Some of them are even downstate.”

Things get especially dicey during the holiday season, by far the company’s biggest for online orders, and the Empire facility no longer has anywhere near enough space for the team to handle the fulfillment.

Hazelton says the expanded facility will have enough space “to support our small package fulfillment for the first three quarters of the year, as well as that fourth quarter when our business grows so much.”

That expansion kicked off in late 2024 and is expected to be done by August. 

One key element is a brand-new 1,200 square-foot freezer, which Hazelton says “will allow us the ability to have all of our freezer goods here on campus.” Thanks to that extra space, Cherry Republic has pledged to purchase an additional 1 million pounds of Michigan tart cherries annually, on top of the approximately 3 million pounds the company already uses each year.

According to an MDARD press release, one goal is for Cherry Republic “to buy and store more cherries during bumper crop years,” something Hazelton notes is especially high on the company’s priorities list after a tough year for Michigan cherry farmers in 2024.

“It certainly does impact us,” Hazelton says of fluctuations in Michigan's cherry crop. “Last year, the sweet cherries were very affected; the tart cherries not as much. But in 2012, there was a total crop failure of tart cherries. So, we definitely look to ensure that we're covering our production needs. Having this freezer here on campus will certainly allow that for us.”

Per the MDARD press release, the project will also create 20 new jobs at Cherry Republic and allow the business to “explore new value-added product lines,” “investigate new revenue streams for cherry farmers,” and “streamline the supply chain and enhance product delivery speeds to buyers.” MDARD Director Tim Boring praised the expansion as a way of “increasing economic prosperity within the cherry industry and allowing Cherry Republic to venture into new value-added Michigan products.”