Pepin Heights Orchard, Inc.

Owner Dennis Courtier’s parents first planted this land to apples in 1949. An excellent site and careful management have allowed the Courtiers and the rest of the Pepin Heights family to produce high quality fruit for more than 60 years, placing them among the top apple orchards in Minnesota.  Over the years, the orchard’s reputation for producing excellent fruit has grown, and so has our business – we now ship apples all over the country.

Our goal is to grow apples that are fresh, crisp and delicious. With state-of-the-art facilities, our apples are sorted, packed and stored in optimal conditions. So whether you shop our Lake City store or your local supermarket, Pepin Heights apples ensure you’ll enjoy that distinctive, just-picked flavor.

Pepin Heights Orchard received a license to commercialize Minneiska (Honeycrisp® x Zestar!), which was later named SweeTango®, a cultivar discovered by the University of Minnesota apple breeding program, from the University of Minnesota Patent and Technology Licensing office in December 2005. Next Big Thing, a Growers Cooperative (NBT), was formed July 31, 2006, and a license granting NBT the right to grow and market Minneiska in North America was received from Pepin Heights upon formation of the Cooperative.