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Washington Apples<br />
Turn Over A New Leaf<br />
PHOTO COURTESY OF CMI<br />
Due to the high maintenance of Honeycrisp, growers are expanding<br />
horizons with hybrids for better production, storage and consumer appeal.<br />
BY BOB JOHNSON<br />
As summer begins to wind down in the final days of August,<br />
produce retailers around the country have a mouth-watering<br />
choice of which fresh fruit from the West to display<br />
most prominently.<br />
While these are the final days of the peaches, table<br />
grapes and other soft fruit out of California, late August is also the<br />
time for the first early season fresh apples from the state of Washington.<br />
The most profitable answer might be to plan ahead well enough<br />
to be able to sell both.<br />
“The initial challenge is the soft fruit and grape deal are still going<br />
out of California when we start,” says Steve Lutz, vice president of<br />
marketing at Columbia Marketing International (CMI), Wenatchee,<br />
WA. “It’s hard to get retailers to reset their space until after Labor Day.”<br />
It might be worth a call to corporate for help lining up the space,<br />
signage and other promotional materials to take full advantage of this<br />
month when Washington is virtually the only apple game in town.<br />
“We’re always going by late August with Gala, Gold and early Fuji,”<br />
says Lutz. “The next apples don’t come until the later part of September.<br />
You work with retailers to plan. Most of the time you have to rely on<br />
the retailers for signage, and so much of it is controlled at the corporate<br />
level that there’s little flexibility.”<br />
A MORE COMPLEX CATEGORY<br />
While the first apples from out West present a merchandising<br />
opportunity late every summer, the new and interesting varieties coming<br />
out of Washington promise to change the category all year-round.<br />
Washington apple growers are not only the first to supply the<br />
market with domestic apples in a big way every year, trailing only the<br />
modest California supply, but they also usually lead in taking new<br />
varieties mainstream.<br />
Consumer interest in the new varieties is making the apple category<br />
ever more complex, challenging, and, potentially, rewarding.<br />
“It’s like the expansion in the grape category with all the specialty<br />
varieties,” says Andy Tudor, director of business development at Rainier<br />
Fruit Company, Yakima, WA. “We’re seeing that coming in apples, but<br />
it doesn’t happen as quickly.”<br />
PRODUCE BUSINESS / AUGUST 2016 / 49
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