Thornton has had a passion for farming for as long as she can remember. What started as picking rocks, grew to thinning trees, irrigation management, and now driving truck, farm operations, and marketing the family’s fruit. Kaitlyn has grown a large following on her personal TikTok, educating consumers on farming and apples. She also manages the TikTok account for SugarBee apples, a proprietary variety that the family happens to farm as well. She has a passion for connecting consumers to their food source and helping consumers understand what it really takes to run a farm and how to choose a great eating apple.
Along with her farming efforts, Kaitlyn has also started a business of her own. What started as a challenge in High School to see if she could sell 20 boxes of apricots on Facebook, has now grown to a full-blown business she calls, Kait’s Crates. The first year she sold over 400 boxes of fruit, 500 the following year, and over 1,000 the year after. With the power of social media, everywhere Kait brings her fruit, she is either pre-sold or selling out with increased quantity each trip. She has now earned the name “Apple Queen” in the Tonasket area and on TikTok as well.
When Thornton isn’t working the farm or running her own business, she is attending Washington State University. After college, Kait plans to go into marketing/sales and continue operating the family farm. She will continue to grow her TikTok and social media following and connect people to the farm, she hopes people can think of her and her dad when they bite into a piece of fruit.
