Star Tribune
A tight labor market hits Minnesota right in the caramel apple
It was a crisp autumn weekend at the Pine Tree Apple Orchard.
Happy families in sweaters and fleece waited in a line so long it stretched almost to the pumpkin patch, inching closer and closer to the warm donuts and cold cider inside. Fall wouldn’t be fall in the north metro without a trip to the Jacobson family farm for fresh-baked pies and fresh-picked apples. This year was no different.
Except for the orchard worker walking up and down the line, apologizing into a bullhorn.
There are no caramel apples this year.
No caramel apples.
“That was our sad little thing this fall,” said Jeanne Jacobson, whose family has been selling those coveted caramel apples at their White Bear Lake farm for the past 35 years. The six Jacobson siblings run the orchard their parents started in the 1950s.
People used to come in and scoop up their signature caramel apples by the dozen — tart Haralson apples, dipped in thick caramel by Abdallah Candies in Apple Valley.
People were so upset they weren’t available this year that the Jacobsons started making the bullhorn announcements to stop people from yelling at the cashiers. (Please don’t yell at the cashiers.)
“We would tell people, ‘No one’s more upset about it than we are. Trust us,'” Jacobson said with a chuckle. She remembers her father, Art Jacobson, driving a truck full of apples to Abdallah’s to be dipped and returning with caramel apples for the customers and sweets from the shop for his own family. Two family businesses, in business for decades.
But this year, there wasn’t enough caramel to go around. Abdallah Candies had to scale back. A few key workers had retired or left — and replacing good workers is no easy task for a Minnesota business these days.
The Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development surveyed the tight labor market this year and found at least two job postings for every job seeker.
Abdallah’s caramel apples were adored and in demand. But caramel apples are labor-intensive when you’re hand-dipping apples into copper kettles. And labor is in short supply.
“It did take a lot of people,” said CEO Steve Hegedus, whose company makes more than 200 types of sweets and treats — including recipes that date back to his great-grandfather, Albert Abdallah, who opened a candy shop at the corner of Lake and Hennepin in Minneapolis in 1909. “Two [of those caramel apple dippers] retired, other people moved on, labor shrank. We couldn’t be all things to all people.”
So the century-old candy factory cut back on some of its outside contracts. Rather than automate or skimp on quality, Hegedus said the company decided to “focus on small-batch, artisan chocolatier confections.” That includes its caramel apples, which are still available at its shop and online.
Pine Tree Apple Orchard searched for a backup source of caramel, but none quite met their standards. So they focused on what they do best.
Jacobson is the bakery manager at the orchard, where caramel apple season is giving way to Thanksgiving pies.
“There’s a lot of people who thought their grandma’s pumpkin pie was the best,” she said, “until they had ours.”
They’ll be taking orders and baking pies right up until Thanksgiving morning.
“We’re open on Thanksgiving morning, 9 to noon. Two of my other sisters and I get here at 4:30 in the morning to get the pies going in the oven, so everyone will get their pies fresh that day,” Jacobson said.
Thanksgiving is a day for family, and like so many small family businesses, they’ll spend theirs together, working.
“We’ll spend Thanksgiving together,” she said, “with some of our best friends — our employees.”
Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan and her daughter were among the throngs Friday as President Joe Biden delivered the apology that many Indigenous Americans thought would never come.
“I think he really said the things that people have been waiting to hear for generations, acknowledged just the horror and trauma of literally having our children stolen from our communities,” said Flanagan, a member of the White Earth Band of Ojibwe. “It’s a powerful first step towards healing.”
Hundreds of boarding schools operated in the 19th and 20th centuries, separating Indigenous children from their families and forcing them to assimilate to European ways. Many children were abused, and at least 973 died, according to a report from the U.S. Department of the Interior.
Other Minnesotans reacted similarly to Flanagan, saying they welcomed the apology but that additional action is needed to help Indigenous people move forward.
Anton Treuer, a professor of Ojibwe at Bemidji State University, wrote in a newsletter that the apology was “a welcome first step on the journey to healing.”
“There is no way to truly right historical injustices for the children buried at Carlisle, Haskell, and other schools, but these words set a new tone for the country and will help heal the anguish so many Natives have carried for so long,” Treuer wrote. “It gives me hope that we can come together to reconcile and heal our troubled nation.”
Sen. Mary Kunesh, DFL-New Brighton, the first Indigenous woman to serve in the state Senate, called Biden’s apology encouraging.
“This recognition of past wrongdoings is an important step towards healing relationships between the United States and the sovereign nations affected by these past systems,” Kunesh said in a statement. “This dark period of American history must be remembered and taught.”
“I have done everything in my power to remedy this situation, and it continues to get more and more violent by the day,” Moturi wrote. “There have been numerous times when I’ve seen Sawchak outside and contacted law enforcement, and there was no response. I am not confident in the pursuit of Sawchak given that Sawchak attacked me, MPD officers had John detained, and despite an HRO and multiple warrants — they still let him go.”
On Friday, five City Council members sent a letter to Mayor Jacob Frey and Police Chief Brian O’Hara expressing their “utter horror at MPD’s failure to protect a Minneapolis resident from a clear, persistent and amply reported threat posed by his neighbor.”
Council Members Andrea Jenkins, Elliott Payne, Aisha Chughtai, Jason Chavez and Robin Wonsley went on to allege that police had failed to submit reports to the County Attorney’s Office despite threats being made with weapons, and at times while Sawchak screamed racial slurs. Sawchak is white and Moturi is Black.
The council members also contend in their letter that the MPD told the County Attorney’s Office that police did not intend to execute the warrant for “reasons of officer safety.”
At a Friday afternoon news conference at MPD’s Fifth Precinct, O’Hara said police had been working to arrest Sawchak since at least April, but “no Minneapolis police officers have had in-person contact with that suspect since the victim in this case has been calling us.” The chief pointed out that Sawchak is mentally ill, has guns and refuses to cooperate “in the dozens of times that police officers have responded to the residence.”
O’Hara put aside the option to carry out “a high-risk warrant based on these factors [and] the likelihood of an armed, violent confrontation where we may have to use deadly force with the suspect.” The preference, he said, was to arrest Sawchak outside his home, but “in this case, this suspect is a recluse and does not come out of the house.”
ROCHESTER – The Federal Transit Administration has green-lighted an $85 million grant supporting the development of the city’s planned Link Bus Rapid Transit system.
The FTA formally announced the grant on Friday during a ceremonial check presentation outside of the Mayo Civic Center, one of the seven stops planned for the bus line. The federal grant will cover about 60% of the project’s estimated $143.4 million price tag, with the remaining funds coming from Destination Medical Center, the largest public-private development project in state history.
Set to go live in 2026, the 2.8-mile Link system will connect downtown Rochester, including Mayo Clinic’s campuses, with a proposed “transit village” that will include parking, hundreds of housing units and a public plaza. The bus line will be the first of its kind outside the Twin Cities — with service running every five minutes during peak hours.
“That means you may not even need to look at a schedule,” said Veronica Vanterpool, deputy administrator for the FTA. “You can just show up at your transit stop and expect the next bus to come in a short time. That is a game changer and a life-transformational experience in transit for those people who are using it and relying on it.”
The planned Second Street corridor is already one of the busiest roads in Rochester, carrying more than 21,800 vehicles a day, and city planners have talked for years about ways to reduce traffic congestion in the city’s downtown. Local officials estimate that the transit line, which will rely on a fleet of all-electric buses, will handle 11,000 riders on its first day of operation and save eight city blocks of parking.
Speaking to a crowd of about 100 people gathered on Friday, Sen. Amy Klobuchar said the project shows Rochester is thinking strategically about how it handles growth.
“If you just plan the business expansion, and you don’t have the workforce, you don’t have the child care, the housing or the transit, it’s not going to work very well as a lot of communities across the nation have found,” Klobuchar said.
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