More Than Just Fruit Snacks: The Story Behind Peaceful Fruits

Evan Delahanty’s two years in the Peace Corps were coming to a close, and he had to decide what to do next. While in a remote part of Suriname in the Amazon rainforest, he brought solar power to small villages to charge cellphones  and replace kerosene lamps. Delahanty had worked for logistics firm McMaster-Carr, but the Peace Corps convinced him his next move should involve helping others, not corporate America.

“I was having a great time” he recalls. “But I knew I had to leave.” 

The Peninsula native learned of a dream job — an opportunity to run a solar lamp division of a company in Lagos, Nigeria. But volatility in the region ultimately led him to decline.

“If I was going to say no to the perfect opportunity, then it was on me to make something better,” Delahanty says. “So I said, ‘OK, it’s time to put your money where your mouth is and do what you’ve been helping others do.’ ”

He wanted to find a way to make a market for Suriname’s crops that didn’t require deforestation. Without food experience — “I’m not even a foodie,” he says — and sparked by a casual conversation with his physician dad, he hatched an idea to use acai, a crop abundant in the Amazon, to create fruit leathers. 

Delahanty brought his idea to Akron, where Peaceful Fruits was born in 2013 and officially launched in 2014. He imports acai from an Amazonian farmer’s co-op and forms it into sweet, zingy acai-pineapple and acai-apple fruit snacks.

“I wanted to stay connected to the people of the Amazon, drive their economic empowerment,” Delahanty says.

At first he made the snacks in his mom’s kitchen. Then, while at a farmers market, Delahanty met Peg Haas and her 34-year-old son Andy, who has Down syndrome. Andy loved the samples and was working at Akron’s 91.3 The Summit radio station putting labels on bookmarks. 

Andy offered to help with the packaging. Six months later, Peaceful Fruits needed an extra hand, and Andy became what Delahanty calls “chief labeling officer.” Peg later connected Delahanty with occupational programs at Hattie Larlham and the Blick Center, where people with disabilities make, pack and label Peaceful Fruits products. 

“These kids can do the job, do it well and with great care,” says Peg. “I’m really pleased that he opted to ... give these folks real work and make a real contribution.”

Andy says he likes packaging for Peaceful Fruits. He listens to the oldies or the Cleveland Indians on the radio while he works. “Evan is kind,” Andy says. “He’s the best man I know.”

Delahanty appeared on ABC’s Shark Tank Feb. 10, where he asked for $75,000 in exchange for 20 percent of Peaceful Fruits. The sharks passed. 

But when his pitch flashed on televisions throughout the country, Peaceful Fruits received $25,000 in orders in about five minutes. Within four days the company had sold more than $75,000 worth of product.

Today, Delahanty is getting 100 to 200 orders a week. He has hired 10 additional people at Hattie Larlham and the Blick Center, and has doubled his number of machines.

“The goal is to create living wages in the Amazon and here in Akron,” Delahanty says. “These are people who need the same thing that people in the Amazon do — that anyone does — a job that respects who they are and gives them an opportunity to better themselves.”