Maui Fruit Jewels Story & Prod Process

Maui Fruit Jewels is a young award-winning fruit confection creating much excitement in Hawaii and quickly gaining popularity since the relaunch of the entire product line in January 2016, especially for visitors of the islands looking for omiyage that are uniquely Hawaiian. 

Owners Chris and Lin ter Horst are professionals who lived and worked in quite a number of different countries, before moving to Maui in 2012 from China, where they met and got married.  Chris is a Dutch national, and Lin was born in Shanghai and grew up in New York City since the age of 10.  Lin was working in Beijing as an investment banker when the financial markets collapsed in 2008.  Inspired by both Julia Child and Julie Powell(Julie & Julia), Lin made a decision to study pastry arts at Le Cordon Bleu London, a decision that forever changed her path. Lin taught pastry arts to local Chinese and expats at her pastry studio in downtown Beijing, and made beautiful wedding cakes that were featured in Beijing editions of the CosmopolitanBride magazine.

After moving to Maui, Lin wanted to open a small French patisserie at first, but quickly changed her mind when she saw the abundance of exotic tropical fruits at local farmers markets on Maui, and decided to make a fruit confection similar to the French pates de fruits using locally-grown fruits to share her love for the islands with the world. By using the pulp from the fruits, and even the seeds in the case of the lilikoi passion fruits, the candies retain all the minerals and fibers, and some of the antioxidants and vitamins that were present in the original fruits, which made these candies not only delicious, but also full of health benefits.  

 In 2014, before they could even find ideal packaging for their new candy line, Chris and Lin were highly encouraged when their fledgling Maui Fruit Jewels received a silver award for the prestigious and highly coveted sofi™ Award for food innovation with their Hana Collection which featured the six most popular tropical fruit flavors - coconut, guava, mango, lilikoi passion fruit, papaya and pineapple, from the Specialty Food Association.  Exhibiting at the Summer Fancy Food Show that year in New York City, Chris and Lin took to hearts feedback from interested buyers who wanted their delicious candies with a much longer shelf life.  They also continued to expand their offering by incorporating locally made wines, and herbs such as turmeric for the increasingly health-conscious customer base.  The Maui Fruit Jewels line includes 18 flavors presently.

Unwilling to compromise their vision for creating a line of premium candy line untainted by chemicals, Chris and Lin worked hard to fine tune their production techniques and sought a custom packaging solution that allowed them to create a fruit candy that was shelf stable and free of additives. 

The resulting fruit candies are very intense in flavor, natural, vegan, and wheatless, preserving the pureness, authenticity, and essence of the Hawaiian islands.  The candies also have a shelf life of one year without refrigeration.

In January 2016, Chris and Lin finally relaunched Maui Fruit Jewels in beautiful new packaging, and the candies became an instant hit with tourists and locals alike.  Maui Fruit Jewels was a finalist for Hawaii Food Manufacturers Association's 2016 Taste Awards in both the "Startup of the Year", and "Product of the Year" categories.

Here, Chris and Lin provide our readers with a photo gallery for how these beautiful candies are made with much love and attention.

Fresh fruits grown on Maui and other Hawaiian islands are washed, and processed into fruit purees.

The fruit purees are cooked with organic cane sugar, glucose, pectin, and citric acid. The cooked mixture is poured into molds, and left to set,

dehydrated,  

 and cut down to size with the use of a guitar cutter.

Finally, the candies are individually packaged,

and sorted into packaging boxes.

Now visitors of Hawaii can bring home a taste of Hawaii-grown tropical fruits in beautifully packaged, easily transportable products.  The candies are not sensitive to heat, and can be transported in carry-on luggage.

Maui Fruit Jewels can be purchased at the following locations: