Costco to market Yakama Juice

It’s tribal company’s first mainstream venture

Associated Press

SELAH -- Yakama Juice, the juice plant owned by the Yakama Nation, will supply Costco Wholesale Corp. with 20,000 cases of apple and pomegranate juice for stores throughout the Pacific Northwest.

The order marks the first time the juice company has put its products in a mainstream market under its own label since the tribe bought the off-reservation business nearly two years ago, said Patrick Kelly, Yakama Juice chief operating officer.

The plant is north of Yakima in Selah.

The company received the order to supply the juice last week. The 96-ounce bottles of fresh-pressed apple juice and 64-ounce bottles of pomegranate juice were to be sold in 45 Costco stores in the Northwest and Alaska beginning Monday, Kelly said.

"If it goes well, it opens a market for our product and label, and opens employment," he said. "We hope it ends up being very, very good for us."

The juice company mostly sells products under its own label in convenience stores throughout the Yakama reservation and in the tribal-owned Legends Casino, local sales representative Virgil Lewis said.

The company, which employs about 75 workers, also makes juice for a national grocery chain and continues to provide juice for the U.S. Department of Agriculture's government food-assistance programs, Kelly said.