Meet REFRESH'D: Where Freeze Drying Goes Next

Harvest Right has spent more than a decade putting freeze dryers in homes. We built the first freeze dryer made for home use, and hundreds of thousands of families have used one since to keep what they grow, what they cook and what they hunt.

Somewhere along the way, our customers taught us something. A lot of them were not only keeping food. They were making things, and selling them.

Now one company has taken that idea further than anyone we have seen. It is called REFRESH'D (refreshdfoods.com), and it starts with candy made out of fruit.

How Freeze Drying Left the Lab

When we built the first home freeze dryer, the idea was simple. Give a family a way to keep a harvest, a batch of leftovers or a freezer full of meat for years instead of months.

People did that. Then they got curious. They put candy in and watched it puff. They put fruit in and found it kept its color and its shape, and came out crunchy.

Some of them turned that curiosity into a business. Farmers' market tables filled up with freeze-dried candy, the big food companies noticed, and today you can buy freeze-dried candy and fruit at the gas station. A lot of that road started in a basement with one of our machines.

The Problem Nobody Had Fixed

REFRESH'D looked at that road and saw one thing that never changed. In their words: "Fruit still travels to the machine: picked early so it survives the trip, shipped, frozen, shipped again, freeze-dried a long way from where it grew."

Their answer, also in their words: "We already had the dryers. Now we're putting them where the fruit is."

Meet REFRESH'D

REFRESH'D starts with candy. Strawberries, blueberries, grapes, mangos and pineapples, Infuz'd with sour, then freeze-dried. REFRESH'D says it is real fruit with no artificial colors or flavors. And some of what is coming isn't even candy.

Their pouches put it this way: "Sour first. Then the sweetest fruit you'll ever eat."

You can read the REFRESH'D story on their site.

The REFRESH'D Lineup

Five fruits, all sour, each in a pouch shaped like the fruit inside. You can see all five fruits on one page.

Sour StrawberriesSour BlueberriesSour GrapesSour MangosSour Pineapples

Where to Start at Home

Many of the freeze-dried candy businesses in this story started with one machine in a kitchen. That is easier now than it has ever been.

The new Countertop 360 is the first freeze dryer of its kind, and it fits right on your kitchen counter. It holds 5 to 9 pounds of food per batch, and candy is one of the fastest things you can run in it, often a few hours instead of a day.

If you want ideas, our Fun Things to Freeze Dry page is the place to start.

Frequently Asked Questions

What does REFRESH'D make?

It starts with candy made from fruit: strawberries, blueberries, grapes, mangos and pineapples, Infuz'd with sour, then freeze-dried. It is sold at refreshdfoods.com and ships within the United States. Some of what is coming isn't candy.

Can the Countertop 360 freeze-dry candy?

Yes. Candy is one of the quickest things to freeze-dry, and it can finish in just a few hours.