Few ingredients are as basic and fundamental—or as wide-ranging—as fruits, vegetables, nuts, and beans. These form the backbone of so many possible food and beverage creations it is safe to say they can never go out of style. What has changed in the industry in recent years are the lengths to which food technologists have gone in to craft formats that give them greater versatility to get everything possible out of these items.

Fruit and vegetable formats have expanded beyond whole fresh, pre-prepped fresh, frozen, dried, and puréed to include multiple forms of dehydrated (such as vacuum- and microwave-dried), juiced, and powdered forms that preserve the nutrients and maintain color so well they actually can be used to naturally color certain formulations. Beyond that, the variety of available produce has expanded exponentially to include literally thousands of examples drawn from every corner of the world. Jackfruit, aronia, baru nuts, carob, camu-camu, black Butte chickpeas, pichu berries, dragonfruit, pili nuts, and mung beans are just some currently trending examples. And even among the more familiar produce items, there are varieties within varieties. Think: Purple potatoes, sea beans, variegated lemons, shishito peppers, Ataulfo mangos, opal apples, yellow dragonfruit, black apricots, pluots, trumpet mushrooms, golden raspberries…if a processor wants to try it, it’s usually available.

A lot is also happening in technology with ingredients derived from these whole forms of plant products. The better-for-you movement, especially, has encouraged experts to extract the most that is possible from plants—proteins, starches, fibers, oils, flavors, texturants, nutraceuticals, and even concentrated natural colorants. These give ample support to the plant-based boom, not only sitting in for animal-derived ingredients but also providing functionality without GMOS or PHOs, or gluten and other allergens.

Fruits, vegetables, nuts, beans, mushrooms, and other produce are enjoying a renewed popularity that has only increased in recent years. Their combination of flavor, versatility, and nutrition hits all the right buttons for the aware consumer of today. Processors can bet that the category will never be boring and that new items, varieties, applications, and formats will present themselves with increasing regularity.

In this section, you’ll find detailed listings for suppliers of fruits, vegetables, nuts, beans, and ingredients derived from them, as well as ancillary ingredients to support the development and manufacture of products using them. Click below for references by company name, headquarters, and website.