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Freeze Drying Fruit | Strawberries, Apples, Raspberries, Blueberries, Pineapple
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May 15, 2025
Freeze-drying removes the water weight from fruit and understanding how much it loses can help you determine the dryness of your freeze-dried fruit and help you forecast how much net product you'll receive after the freeze-drying process. In this video (updated from a previous video I posted), I share with you how much weight fruit loses. The fruits I use to freeze-dry in this video include strawberries, pineapple, raspberries, blueberries, and apples. The freeze dryer setting I use for all fruit, no matter if the machine is 125 degrees and I select the final-dry time to be at a minimum of 8 hours. The more final--dry time the better. The Harvest Right Freeze-Dryers is what I use in my business and I would recommend considering them for your existing freeze-dried business or just starting out. I like the Harvest Right Large for those starting their freeze-drying business and then you can advance to the XL if you have enough business coming in. The stainless steel is a good idea if you want to go commercial. Use my referral link below to purchase directly from Harvest Right. Harvest Right Freeze Dryers: https://affiliates.harvestright.com/1974.html Create an Amazon Business Account like I did to save on Amazon purchases: https://amzn.to/40HUntM Interested in the Roller Berry tool? Visit https://www.frozenright.com Tell them David from The Freeze Dried Business channel sent you. They may include a discount. Items in this video you can order on Amazon: - Pineapple tool - https://amzn.to/3EzTXvn - Cuisinart 12-piece knife set - https://amzn.to/3BfLnkq - Fry Slicer for Apples - https://amzn.to/3BZ9QeY - Strawberry/Fruit Slicer: https://amzn.to/3Y773cG - Knife Sharpener - https://amzn.to/3Vrttml - Large cutting board - https://amzn.to/3GqhIYN - Food Scale - https://amzn.to/3FyO9DW
View Video Transcript
0:00
a freeze dryer like the one next to me
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removes water activity and moisture from
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various different foods I've got several
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different fruits that I'm going to show
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you what the net weight is after freeze
0:09
drying let's get
0:10
[Music]
0:13
started the fruits that we're going to
0:15
do today to see gross versus net weight
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is we're going to do pineapple we're
0:19
going to do raspberries
0:21
strawberries blueberries and apples all
0:24
right here are all the tools that I use
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to prepare fruit these have really
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helped me be more efficient in my
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business and get these fruits prepared
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very quickly and easily now if you're
0:35
interested in purchasing any of these
0:36
I've got links in the video description
0:38
of this video that link directly to
0:41
Amazon they are affiliate links so I do
0:43
get a small commission and for the very
0:45
small amount that Amazon does give me in
0:47
commission I use it directly to buy
0:49
different tools and things that I'm
0:50
seeing that would be beneficial for all
0:52
of you to see me use for this freeze
0:55
drying channel so I'd appreciate any
0:57
type of purchases that go through those
0:58
links all right so what we've got here
0:59
here is I've got a knife sharpener this
1:01
is an antique sharpener I don't think
1:03
you're going to find that on the Amazon
1:04
links but I do have one that's more
1:06
modern on there this is a uh egg slicer
1:11
um that I use for strawberries to slice
1:13
into different pieces now this is an
1:16
apple core so this goes directly into
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the core which I'll show you of the
1:20
pineapple and then after you get it CED
1:22
you slice this down and it gets you
1:24
really nice bite-sized pieces with this
1:26
piece uh I got a really great knife and
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then I've also got of course the roller
1:31
Berry which I did a video on and this
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pokes the skin of blueberry so that the
1:35
moisture releases and you get a really
1:37
nice crispy blueberry um and it drops
1:39
the blueberries with this little uh
1:41
groove right here also I've got this
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apple slicer now this is actually more
1:46
of a potato slicer believe it or not for
1:48
fries but I use it for apples and you
1:51
put it in here then you slide this lever
1:53
and it creates all these different nice
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little small bite-size fry slices for
1:58
apples
2:01
all right so let's get started with
2:03
blueberries so what I've got is a scale
2:05
here that will measure the gross and net
2:07
weight but I wanted to make sure I
2:09
showed you what I'm kind of doing within
2:11
this video so for blueberries here that
2:13
I've already washed what I did is I I
2:16
really looked for a Tray's worth in the
2:19
large freeze dryer worth of fruit and I
2:22
made sure that I did a pound of every
2:25
type of fruit or more and so this is a
2:28
carton of blueberri it's 6 oz grow
2:32
starting out and I did three of those so
2:34
what we're going to do is we're going to
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turn on the scale now I'm going to use
2:37
this bowl and then I'm going to tear it
2:39
off so that it gets to zero and then
2:41
we're going to pour the
2:43
blueberries into this bowl for the
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blueberries it's 1 lb and 3 oz so that's
2:49
what we'll start with with the
2:50
blueberries now it's time to use the
2:52
roller Berry and get the blueberries
2:54
poke again I use a Harvest Right tray
2:57
and silicone mat to to line these up and
3:01
uh if you'd like to buy Harvest Right
3:04
mats you can obviously go to their
3:05
website I've got a link in the
3:06
description and just transfer the
3:08
blueberries over to the freezer paper
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you want to have the shiny side up and
3:12
then we just keep doing the
3:16
[Music]
3:28
blueberries
3:31
all right this is 18 oz of blueberries
3:34
poked and all with the roller Berry I'm
3:35
going to put this into the freezer so
3:37
we'll pre-freeze it and then we'll get
3:39
into the freeze dryer and see what the
3:40
net weight is of 18 oz of blueberries
3:44
all right the blueberries are done take
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a look at this this is what your free-
3:48
dry Blu-ray should look like when you
3:50
poke the skin it shouldn't look like
3:52
this one this one wasn't poked as you
3:54
can see it kind of exploded the rest of
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them did not so this is a good solid
3:59
batch of blue blueberries now if you
4:00
recall what we did with the blueberries
4:02
this gross weight was about 18 Oz we did
4:05
three packs of 6 oz of the blueberries
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let's see how
4:10
much the blueberries get for net weight
4:13
all right so let's take a look at the
4:14
results after we put in 18 oz of
4:17
blueberries starting out we got after
4:20
freeze drying 2.3 net oz of Freez dried
4:26
blueberries all right next up is
4:28
raspberries this is another 6 oz Carton
4:31
and I put three raspberries I've already
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washed all of these raspberries so we're
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going to transfer it to this bowl let it
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zero out then let's put the raspberries
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on there all right so what we've got
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here for gross rate for The Raspberries
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just a little bit over a pound so we've
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got a pound and roughly maybe 2 to 3 oz
4:51
of raspberries so we'll put that onto
4:53
the baking sheet and then put it in the
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[Music]
4:58
freezer all right so here's a pound of
5:01
raspberries we'll put this into the
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freezer let it pre-freeze and then we'll
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put it into the freeze dryer this is
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what freeze-dried raspberries looks like
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become super crunchy I'll smash one of
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these just super Airy it's very tart but
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very delicious great for smoothies
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yogurts that's how I would Market it and
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um just excellent excellent fruit to
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freeze dry we're going to put them into
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the
5:27
bowl and let's see what it came out to
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all right so how much did we get from 18
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oz of raspberries 2.2 net oun were
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produced from freeze drying raspberries
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I do want to invite you to a couple of
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my other videos there's a lot of other
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videos on how to do different candies
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fruits and I even do ice cream so check
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that out and as always if you enjoy this
5:49
video please hit the like button but
5:51
also subscribe to the channel so that
5:53
you can be notified of future videos and
5:55
join us in this F giant Community
5:58
thanks
6:00
all right so let's get started with
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strawberries now and what we're going to
6:04
do is we're going to cut off the stems
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of the strawberries that are already
6:07
washed so that we can figure out the
6:09
gross weight of that versus with the
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stems
6:13
[Music]
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on all right now that the stems are off
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the strawberries we're going to weigh
6:31
the gross weight that way we know where
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we started I'm doing 2 lbs of
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strawberries out of these cartons so
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there's one and then another one of
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these all right sweet so we're starting
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off with 2 lbs of strawberries with the
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stems off which is awesome I'm going to
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go ahead and slice these strawberries
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and then we'll put it on the baking
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sheet and put it in the
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[Music]
6:58
freezer PBS of strawberries all the
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gross great so we're going to put this
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into the freezer and then we'll see what
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the net weight comes out okay here we go
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with strawberries these are freeze-dried
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strawberries they should be very crispy
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and Airy and look like this and just
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basically snap in half these are awesome
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this probably my one of my
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favorite okay so what do we get for the
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strawberries we got 3.4 net ounz from 2
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lbs of strawberries all sliced in
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all all right so one of my favorite
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fruits that's freeze dry but I don't do
7:39
it as much as I should is pineapple I've
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got two Pineapple we'll cor it using
7:45
this core and then we'll put all those
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slices into a bowl and figure out the
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gross weight so let's do
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[Music]
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that so now we're ready to core the
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pineapple
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Apple this is a really
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ripe pineapple as you can tell by the
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outside layer but that's okay I just
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wanted to get some pineapple for this
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video to kind of see how much we're
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going to get we're going to use now this
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slicer and this goes all the way down
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and gets you into like the little bite
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siiz pieces two pineapples all sliced
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and cord we've got 1 lb and almost 15 oz
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so we'll put this into the freezer
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freeze-dried pineapple is super
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delicious man the flavor is just
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fantastic now sometimes you do need to
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freeze dry this a little bit longer I've
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checked a lot of these and it should
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kind of sound like what you're hearing
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it should sound like it's dry and just
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kind of crumbling up and breaking apart
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like this all right so what do we get
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from Pineapple we got five net Oz from 2
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lb of pineapple sliced and cord
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awesome
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all right last fruit on our list for
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this video is going to be apples I've
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got some Gayla apples this is about 2
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lbs of apples there's only five of them
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now this is one of my favorite tools for
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prepping fruit other than the roller
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Berry this is a fry slicer that I found
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off at Amazon this is fantastic you put
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the Apple into this apple core and then
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you push this lever and it slices out
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the Apple into these little pieces that
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look like
9:32
[Music]
9:43
fries all right so let's see how much
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this weighs as part of a gross once
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we've sliced them all all right so look
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what we've got here we've got 1 lb and
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12 oz gross weight for all these apple
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slices so we'll put them onto the baking
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sheet and then we'll put them into the
10:00
freezer and we'll see what happens after
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we freeze dry all right freeze-dried
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apples are out they're just awesome they
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look very snacky that's why I like doing
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that potato slicer big reveal how much
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did we get from five Gayla apples we got
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4.3 net oz of freeze dried Apple
10:18
[Music]
10:20
fry hey I wanted to address a couple of
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questions that usually come up in my
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videos which is you know if you're
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starting out doing a freeze dry business
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or you're currently doing one one of the
10:30
things you're trying to evaluate is what
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the price is going to be on your
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packages based on various sizes but also
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you know how much weight or how much
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product do you put in there so to answer
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that question I really didn't make it
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too complicated on myself when I first
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started out and even to this day I went
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online I did some Google searches I went
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on to Etsy and I looked to see what
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other freeze drying companies were
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pricing their products at and the net
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weight and what I found to be more
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consistent online and from other freeze
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dry companies including including large
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companies like the brands that you see
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at Target and Trader Joe's freeze drying
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fruit generally about one net ounce of
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freeze-dried fruit is going to run about
11:08
$6 to $7 I add probably $2 to $3 for my
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end because I'm a local small business
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it's a little bit more premium I'm not
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mass-producing it I'm more pricing it as
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a local premium freeze dried fruit
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product so that's what I would suggest
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you doing is kind of looking at about an
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ounce of product and then marking it up
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to probably about $9 to $10 per ounce
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you need to evaluate you know how much
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labor you're putting into prepping all
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that fruit as you saw earlier in this
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video it did take a lot of time to prep
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and slice and do different types of
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fruits maybe raspberries was one of
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those that didn't take that much time
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but you really do need to take into
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account the time and labor that you're
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putting into that and also you're not
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adding any preservatives or sugars like
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some of the other companies might be
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doing so to recap the answer is those
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larger companies that are mass--
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producing freeze-dried fruit they are
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pricing about 1 net ounce of fruit for
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about $6 to $7 so for the smaller
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business freeze-dried companies I would
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recommend pricing that up about $2 to3
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more dollars I'm still selling all the
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fruit that I put out there to my
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customers and in retail stores it still
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seems to be demanding that type of price
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hey that was awesome figuring out the
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gross and net weight of all these
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different fruits I think this is really
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helpful just for you to evaluate and
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figure out what you can forecast for all
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the different Cycles based on how many
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pounds you need to buy at the store and
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then how many you're going to actually
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get out of freeze drying in that cycle
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because it's all about just knowing how
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quickly you can get stuff freeze dry but
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also how much bags you can get so that
12:45
you can get out there and sell so I hope
12:46
this video was helpful make sure you
12:48
subscribe to this Channel and join us in
12:50
the freeze drying Community thanks again
12:51
for watching and do something great for
12:53
your community for freeze drying as a
12:55
business see
12:57
you
13:00
oh
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