Pastor Chuck's Stars

We're fortunate to have a very select team of professional companies that help us assure the quality of all of our Pastor Chuck products. It gives me great pleasure to introduce you to Donald Ricker and his two sons Peter and Harry at Ricker Hill Orchards, one of the largest growers of organic apples on the East Coast.

Because there is no use of pesticides or herbicides, growing organic apples is a very labor intensive process. In fact, organic apples are one of the hardest fruits to grow, but the Ricker family takes the task in stride.

Ricker Hill Orchards has been growing apples for over eight generations. They're located in Turner, a small town in the foothills of Maine about an hour's drive from the coast. The farm grows everything from crisp red apples to sourly sweet cranberries, from pears and peaches to North American Ginseng, but the Ricker family's true passion since 1803 has always been apples.

Ricker Hill Orchards offers many different apple varieties, but it's the McIntosh that they're best known for. If you live in or are visiting Maine during apple-picking season and would like to see where many of Pastor Chuck's apples are grown, you can stop by one of Ricker Hill's fruit stands in Turner, Maine.

There's so much more to making natural apple products than nature and apple trees, and it's trusted, local experts like the Rickers that makes our jobs easier and the quality of our products better.