The Next Big Thing Cooperative builds apple awareness
As the executive director of the Next Big Thing Cooperative, Jennifer Miller realizes that it is vital to build awareness of apples — their health benefits and the many varieties available — with consumers in order to build sales in the market.
“We grow great apples in the United States,” said Miller, who has been with the cooperative for more than five years after a career in the foodservice industry. “Eastern growers are some of the best apple growers in the country and it is a great climate for apples. There is need to keep apples top of mind with consumers, not only the health benefits but also the innovation and great varieties that are being produced.”
Miller explained that most people do not know that it can take almost 30 years, from start to finish, to get a new variety up and running commercially. “These growers are fully committed to bringing consumers and retailers the most innovative and tastiest apples available,” she noted. “SweeTango growers in the east are no different. Consumers should look for a bi-colored apple — mostly red with yellow. Yellow is a component of SweeTango and should not indicate that they are not ripe. A SweeTango should be firm with a crisp bite that is intensely juicy and flavorful. Consumers will not be sorry that they picked up a bag or a single SweeTango.”
Miller explained that the Next Big Thing Cooperative was formed when the SweeTango variety was developed by the University of Minnesota in the early 2000s. Elite growers from the U.S. and Canada were asked to be a part of this exclusive group to grow and sell SweeTango apples. The cooperative’s members are both commercial and direct farm operations. “We have 62 members in Washington, Minnesota, Michigan, Wisconsin and New York, as well as Canada. We have 16 growers that farm in New York State,” she added. “The cooperative is looking to develop exciting new varieties for the future, as well.”
Miller is excited about the apple season, explaining that, despite some pretty extreme weather this year, the group remains optimistic that they will have an excellent crop this season. “SweeTango is one of the early varieties on the market at the start of fall so while being an exceptional apple it is also one of the first out to kick off the season,” she said. “We have developed a robust and thorough marketing strategy that will help both retailers and consumers alike. We have a store locator on our website, www.sweetango.com, where consumers can find the store nearest to their zip code.
“If they do not find a store it alerts us to an area that isn’t covered making it easier to identify demand and get apples to those locations. We have had a strong start to our season, but what we would like both retailers and consumers to know is that our volume of SweeTango will take us further into the new year so instead of a six to eight-week selling season stores could carry SweeTango for longer and help bring those consumers that are looking for this amazing apple.”
Miller is also quick to say that just the anticipation of the fall season is always a huge driver of apple sales. All consumers, she said, look forward to this change in seasons and SweeTango does not disappoint. “We do have a reported ‘carry over’ of old crop Honeycrisp, from the 2023 harvest, that will be on the market until October, so this usually competes with the new crop apples,” she noted. “This situation makes it more difficult to sell our new crop efficiently, but we will have a great season with more SweeTango than we have ever had in years past.”
Promotions also play a big role. She said the cooperative is going heavy with promotions this year to build awareness of the SweeTango variety. “We are looking to geo fence and farm for consumer awareness in a much bigger capacity this year,” she said. “We have a great marketing strategy in place to increase consumer awareness and get more people talking about the amazing SweeTango.”
