♪♪ When your family business is to grow, pick, pack, sell and ship stone fruit by the millions of pounds, you know a thing or two about cooking with peaches.

I'm Peggy.

I'm Alexandra, and this is The Kitchen at Summeripe.

Peach salsa, smoothies, even street tacos!

Just ask Alexandra Thurlow.

[Alexandra] My main day today is marketing and... and developing recipes with my mom, which is my favorite part.

This is home, and I really...

I really love working with my family.

Family is at the heart of Mountain View Fruit, founded in 1994 by a few area farm families with an eye on innovation.

Mike Thurlow is owner and CEO.

His wife, Peggy, and their two children, Alexandra and Michael, are involved in the day-to-day business of the company.

[Mike] So, my wife Peggy helps on the recipe development and logistics and entertainment.

My daughter Allie works in the media marketing department.

My son Michael, um, works in the sales office.

We wear many, many hats during the day.

It... it doesn't get boring, that's for sure.

Peaches are their biggest seller, but that's not all that's grown here.

[Mike] As soon as the sun comes up, we send out literally thousands of workers into all the fields throughout our area here.

And they're harvesting 25 different varieties of peaches and plums and white peaches and white nectarines.

So, the workers are highly skilled.

It is not unskilled labor at all.

Um, it's very difficult to be a good harvester.

They are trained to pick just the ripest fruit that's ready for harvest.

It's brought directly to the packing shed where it's washed and waxed, graded, sorted and packed into the particular package that's going to the retailers across the globe.

A fact that shocks many people is how many varieties we pack to give continuous supply to the chain stores across- and ultimately, our customers across the country.

They specialize in stone fruits at Mountain View Fruit, called stone fruit because of the large pits inside.

Most people think that the pit is the seed, but the seed is actually inside the pit or stone.

From picking to packing, each piece of fruit needs to be handled with care to avoid damage.

Many folks call this area "the world's fruit basket," and for good reason.

If you're talking crop value, in recent years, no county in the United States beats Fresno County.

In 2020, the county sold nearly $8 billion in high-value crops like stone fruits, nuts and citrus.

[Mike] Pretty much anything can grow here, but especially stone fruit.

Um, in probably as little of a seven mile circumference area around here, is what's considered the premier stone fruit land in the world.

It surprises some people when they find out where our fruit goes.

And I'm not talking about our personal fruit, but all the fruit from this area.

It goes all over the globe from the Middle East to cruise ships across the world to chain stores across the United States, to Singapore, Malaysia, Taiwan, Hong Kong, New Zealand.

It's absolutely amazing where our fruit ends up.

We get proper dormancy.

We get, hopefully, enough rain.

Um, we get sun and plenty of heat to create the sugars.

So, this is the absolute perfect place to grow peaches and nectarines and plums and pluots and apricots and pretty much anything you can think of.

The region's climate gets most of the credit for its agricultural abundance.

Access to water and a hard-working migrant labor force are also critical factors.

[Mike] It's intensely rewarding to deliver a piece of fruit to a consumer's house that they associate with Summer.

Uh, that's why we named one of our labels "Summertime."

We want you to smell a peach or a nectarine and think of summertime.

Summertime in California's Central Valley means hot temperatures, often well over a hundred degrees.

It's hot work out here, and it's getting hotter, with growing concerns here about the impact of climate change.

[Mike] In the past, I'd say, 10 years, we've definitely noticed it's getting warmer here.

The stone fruit trees need cooler temperatures to rest in the winter, and they haven't been getting that in recent years.

Despite these challenges, the Thurlow family says there is nowhere else they'd rather be.

[Mike] I went away for a couple of years, but, you know, this is where home is.

Mike Thurlow's son Michael knows all about the uncertainty that comes with agriculture, but he's hopeful for the future.

[Michael] I saw my dad deal with hail, short crop, uh, long crop, I mean, just every imaginable problem that a farmer would face so, um, you know, he... he told a lot of people it's... it's not for the faint of heart, farming.

You know, the family farmer lifestyle seems to be becoming more difficult, so that's... that's, uh, a difficulty I see in the future.

But, um, you know, we... we've survived through the decades and we'll continue to do so.

There are lots of ingredients at work here at Mountain View Fruit: hard work, innovative ideas that increase efficiency and help the bottom line, reaching customers in new ways, and, of course, tasty, fresh fruit delivered year-round.

But Mike Thurlow has an idea as to what's really behind their success.

[Mike] This is more than just a job.

It's our lifestyle.

It's our culture.

We want it to be our children's culture as well.

So, we're here for the long haul.

♪♪ Peaches have a lot of good things going for them.

High in vitamin A and potassium, they're also a good source of dietary fiber.

Oh, and did I mention they were lucky?

Peaches originated in ancient China, where they were thought to have mystical attributes bringing good luck, abundance and protection The United States provides about a quarter of the world's supply of peaches, and there are some 700 varieties of peaches around the globe, including some varieties that are almost flat, like hockey pucks.