From a basement startup to the world’s largest frozen fruit supplier, John Tentomas, Founder & Chief Executive Officer of Nature’s Touch Frozen Foods, has built a business grounded in quality, innovation, and trust. In this conversation, he reflects on the company’s journey, the values that continue to drive its growth, and his vision for the future of frozen food.
Built on Quality, Driven by Purpose
John recalls that the founding vision behind Nature’s Touch Frozen Foods started with a frustration and a belief. Before Nature’s Touch, he spent years sourcing frozen fruit around the world as a commodities trader. A mentor taught him how to source the right way, which meant putting quality, consistency, and safety above everything else.
He walked the farms, stood on the freezing lines, and inspected fruit varieties across continents, including working alongside one of the largest fruit buyers in the world. “I saw how extraordinary frozen fruit can be when it’s done right, and how inconsistent it is when it’s not,” he observes.
In 2004, John started Nature’s Touch from his basement with one conviction: families deserve real, sun-ripened fruit, picked at its peak and frozen with care, available every day of the year and not only when it’s in season. “Fruit as nature intended, with nothing added. That idea, nature at its peak and always on the ready, is still what the company is for,” he emphasizes.
“I started in my basement with one belief. Families deserve real fruit, picked at its peak, every day of the year and not just in season.”
Innovation Fueled by Quality and Partnership
What began as a one-person sourcing operation became a company built around uncompromising control of quality at every step it touched, partnering with growers it knows and trusts, often for years. “We set a high standard for the fruit we accept, invested in our own freezing and packaging, and chose to serve one customer with total focus, the retail shopper. That discipline made us the most dependable private label frozen fruit partner in North America,” John explains.
In 2023, Nature’s Touch acquired the frozen fruit operations of Sunrise Growers, which added facilities in Kansas and Mexico and gave North American consumers one of the most expansive freezing and distribution networks on the continent. Alongside that scale, they kept innovating, most visibly in coated fruit, where they wrap real fruit in smooth chocolate or finish it with a thin, lightly sweet coating that delivers a genuine sour pop.
Explaining the three strategies that mattered most in driving sustainable business growth, John puts customer focus first. “We serve consumer retail and nothing else, so every decision is made for the shopper and the retailers who reach them,” he notes.
Second comes quality control, with Nature’s Touch owning the standard the fruit must meet. “We choose our growers carefully, run our own freezing and packaging, and qualify every step the fruit takes. That protects quality, manages cost, and lets us respond quickly,” he says.
Partnership over selling is the third strategy that helps them bring retailers category data, consumer insight, and innovation, not just product. “We’ve been careful about acquisitions, pursuing them only where they add real capacity, reach, and capability rather than scale for its own sake,” John insists.
Balancing Value Through Purposeful Innovation
Nature’s Touch balances quality, affordability, and innovation in its product offerings. “Quality is the one thing we never trade away. It’s the price of entry into someone’s home,” John says, adding that the private label model makes the balance possible. By building exceptional products under their retail partners’ brands, Nature’s Touch “takes out cost without taking out care,” and they pass that value straight to the shopper.
John maintains that affordability and quality are not opposites when the supply chain is built correctly. “Innovation is the third leg, and we design it to grow the category, not just our margin,” he says, adding that Nature’s Touch’s coated fruit shows how that works, by turning an everyday bag of fruit into an indulgent, snackable treat, the richness of chocolate or the bright, sour bite of their lightly coated line, at a price families can reach.
“The test for any new product is simple. Does it make eating real, healthy food easier and more delicious? If it does, it earns its place,” John affirms. The same instinct that sends him looking for a special crop, a broccoli from Ecuador that holds its structure, or a fruit no one else has bothered to source, also helps him keep the spirit of innovation alive across the company.
“We hire for curiosity and protect it. We’re determined without being domineering, and collaborative without being slow. Ideas are expected to come from everywhere, and the people closest to the customer are trusted to act,” John explains. “We call our personality the passionate trailblazer. Principled, optimistic, resourceful, and creative. Culture is not a poster on the wall. It’s what people do when no one’s watching, and ours is built around genuine care for how a family uses what we make.”
“Quality and food safety aren’t features you add. They’re the price of entry into someone’s home.”
Technology Powering Trust, Safety, and Growth
The advance John is proudest of is in food safety: a proprietary virus detection method that improves pathogen detection roughly 40x, catching viruses traditional tests miss.”
“We developed a proprietary virus detection method that improves pathogen detection roughly 40x, catching viruses that traditional tests miss. That’s a meaningful safeguard as the world eats more frozen fruit,” he shares. “Traceability lets us follow fruit from farm to freezer, and demand planning and analytics help us hold a service level above 98.5%, because a great product that isn’t on the shelf helps no one. None of it substitutes for someone standing on a freezing line and looking at the fruit.”
John believes that “agility is cultural before it’s operational,” which ensures that the company remains agile in a competitive global market. “We keep decisions close to the people who understand the fruit and the customer, so we move fast without losing care,” he maintains.
Nature’s Touch has a global presence with its own people on the ground across sourcing regions, so it can find and qualify a special crop while others are still negotiating. “I’m always in pursuit of fruit that’s hard to source, because difficulty is where the value hides,” John shares, noting that same instinct lets them flex quickly when a retailer needs a new format, a new flavor, or a faster turnaround. “Size and speed are usually enemies. We work hard to keep them friends,” he adds.
For John, the hardest challenge that Nature’s Touch faces in scaling internationally is also the most important – holding one uncompromising standard of food safety and quality across very different geographies. He points out that fruit is grown by nature, not by a factory, so consistency takes real work.
Nature’s Touch met that challenge by holding one standard across every grower and plant they work with, by auditing their own facilities and key suppliers against rigorous social and ethical standards, and by building trusted, long-term relationships in each sourcing region rather than chasing the lowest price.
“Different markets bring different retail and regulatory expectations, and we’ve learned that more slowly than we would like to admit. As we expand into Asia Pacific and other international markets, reliability and safety are what travel with us,” John explains.
Sustainability Rooted in Long-Term Partnerships
Nature’s Touch integrates sustainability and environmental responsibility into its operations by capturing produce at its peak and dramatically reducing the waste that comes with fresh produce. “Frozen fruit is part of a more sustainable food system by its nature. We build on that advantage across three pillars,” John notes.
By measuring their ecological footprint and pushing hard on diverting waste from landfill, they meet their climate and environment goals. By moving toward fully recycle-ready packaging guided by clear design standards, they ensure their products meet sustainability goals. They also hold their facilities and key suppliers to independent ethical audits. “Sustainability is not a campaign for us. It’s consistent with why the company exists,” John affirms.
To strengthen relationships with farmers, suppliers, and partners, everything Nature’s Touch makes starts with people they know and trust. They source from long-term relationships, not one-off transactions, and keep their own people on the ground where the fruit grows, visiting farms, reviewing processes, and assessing quality in person. “That presence builds mutual loyalty,” John observes. “Growers know we’ll be back next season, and that consistency lets them invest in doing things right.
The company’s ethical and food safety audits are not just compliance exercises. They raise standards in a way that benefits the farmer, the retailer, and ultimately the family at the table. “We operate the same way with our retail partners. We’re transparent on commitments, accountable on delivery, and focused on their growth as much as our own,” John insists.
From Humble Beginnings to Global Leadership
The milestone that John is most humbled by is how he went from a basement startup in 2004 to becoming the world’s largest frozen fruit supplier – an achievement that was never guaranteed. The 2023 acquisition of the Sunrise Growers frozen fruit operations was a defining step that broadened the company’s North American footprint and capacity in one deliberate move, and its investment in new U.S. facilities extended it further.
“Recognition from the industry as a supplier, an innovator, and a sustainable partner has meant a great deal,” John admits. “But the milestone I value most is quieter. Families around the world now reach for our fruit without thinking about it. That trust is the achievement.”
Noting that the frozen food industry is a growing category, projected to expand meaningfully worldwide over the coming years, with coated fruit becoming one of the fastest-growing segments in the freezer, John lists three things that he expects Nature’s Touch to keep shaping in the industry.
First, the standard for food safety and quality, which he believes will only become more important as people eat more frozen fruit. Second, innovation that makes real fruit more delicious and more tempting, with coated fruit chief among it, pulling new shoppers into the aisle.
Third, the private label partnership model, which puts value back in the shopper’s pocket while strengthening the retailers they serve. “The ambition hasn’t changed since the basement: more families, in more countries, eating better fruit than they otherwise would,” John reiterates.
“We don’t sell frozen fruit. We deliver nature at its peak, always on the ready.”
Leadership Built on Conviction and Trust
John’s advice to aspiring entrepreneurs who want to build visionary companies is to begin with a conviction strong enough to survive the hard years and the humility to learn from everyone around them. “Know exactly who you serve and refuse to be everything to everyone. Never compromise on the things that earn trust. For us, that is quality and safety, and there is no version of growth worth losing them,” he insists.
He also recommends building relationships for the long term with suppliers and partners who carry them, and staying curious, especially about the problems others find too hard, because “that’s where opportunity lives.”
“And be honest with yourself about the years before it works. Mine took longer than I expected, and the only thing that carried me through them was believing the fruit could be better than what was on the shelf,” he concludes.
“Find what’s hard to source. That’s where the value hides, and where leadership begins.”
Conclusion
From transforming a simple idea into the world’s largest frozen fruit supplier, John Tentomas has shown that success is built on quality, innovation, and trusted partnerships. As Nature’s Touch continues to expand its global footprint, its commitment to making nutritious, high-quality frozen fruit more accessible remains unchanged. The company is not only shaping the future of frozen foods but also advancing sustainability, food safety, and customer value.
