Honeycrisp driving apple category at Rainier Fruit
Honeycrisp driving apple category at Rainier Fruit
Selah, WA-based Rainier Fruit Co. recently announced that it expects to market over 500,000 euro cartons of Honeycrisp apples during the 2007-08 shipping season, a significant increase over last year.
Due in part to young orchards coming into production, this year's crop is also producing exceptionally large fruit, resulting in good promotion opportunities. Moreover, supplies should run through March, a full two months longer than the 2006 crop.
"We can't recall another variety that has achieved this kind of popularity and demand so quickly," Suzanne Wolter, director of marketing at Rainier, said in a statement.
Ms. Wolter said that Rainier is not seeing any slowing in retail demand, and she added that some retailers had asked about Honeycrisp's fourth-quarter availability back in the second quarter of this year in preparation for the fall apple-selling season.
According to a report from the Perishables Group, Honeycrisp accounted for 5.2 percent of the apple category dollar share nationally in the fourth quarter of 2006, representing a 2.2 percent increase over the fourth quarter of 2005.
The report also indicated that some retailers have attributed the recent success of the apple category as a whole to the Honeycrisp variety, with one retailer claiming the variety had contributed up to 15 percent in overall category sales.
And a major midwestern wholesale customer of Rainier is selling more cases of Honeycrisp in 12 weeks at an average retail price of $2.49 per pound than it sold of its second-leading variety, which was stocked for 26 weeks. The wholesaler went on to say that Honeycrisp had increased the total apple category share more than 1 percent during that 26-week period.
Rainier, the single-largest producer of Honeycrisp, has planted orchards mostly at higher elevations where the apple grows best. Cool air flowing off the Cascade Mountains helps to promote a denser cell structure leading to a crisper apple with a crunchier bite.
The grower-shipper has made significant investments to ensure that the fruit arrives at the packinghouse in a condition that will pack out well. The fruit is harvested into padded, smaller-than-average picking buckets to reduce potential bruising, and each stem is manually cut again after removal from the tree to eliminate puncture wounds.
The bin bottoms are also layered with padding and only partially filled to reduce damage during transit and storage of the delicate Honeycrisp variety. On the packingline, the fruit is run into a cell-pack euro. Cell packs secure the fruit in place, offering better protection than a standard tray. The 27- pound euro box is another measure to reduce potential bruising.
"We have resisted retail requests for standard 40-pound boxes - it's just not the right thing for the fruit," Ms. Wolter said. "The moment we disappoint the consumer is the moment Honeycrisp begins to slide in popularity, and we'd prefer to not take that risk."
Due in part to young orchards coming into production, this year's crop is also producing exceptionally large fruit, resulting in good promotion opportunities. Moreover, supplies should run through March, a full two months longer than the 2006 crop.
"We can't recall another variety that has achieved this kind of popularity and demand so quickly," Suzanne Wolter, director of marketing at Rainier, said in a statement.
Ms. Wolter said that Rainier is not seeing any slowing in retail demand, and she added that some retailers had asked about Honeycrisp's fourth-quarter availability back in the second quarter of this year in preparation for the fall apple-selling season.
According to a report from the Perishables Group, Honeycrisp accounted for 5.2 percent of the apple category dollar share nationally in the fourth quarter of 2006, representing a 2.2 percent increase over the fourth quarter of 2005.
The report also indicated that some retailers have attributed the recent success of the apple category as a whole to the Honeycrisp variety, with one retailer claiming the variety had contributed up to 15 percent in overall category sales.
And a major midwestern wholesale customer of Rainier is selling more cases of Honeycrisp in 12 weeks at an average retail price of $2.49 per pound than it sold of its second-leading variety, which was stocked for 26 weeks. The wholesaler went on to say that Honeycrisp had increased the total apple category share more than 1 percent during that 26-week period.
Rainier, the single-largest producer of Honeycrisp, has planted orchards mostly at higher elevations where the apple grows best. Cool air flowing off the Cascade Mountains helps to promote a denser cell structure leading to a crisper apple with a crunchier bite.
The grower-shipper has made significant investments to ensure that the fruit arrives at the packinghouse in a condition that will pack out well. The fruit is harvested into padded, smaller-than-average picking buckets to reduce potential bruising, and each stem is manually cut again after removal from the tree to eliminate puncture wounds.
The bin bottoms are also layered with padding and only partially filled to reduce damage during transit and storage of the delicate Honeycrisp variety. On the packingline, the fruit is run into a cell-pack euro. Cell packs secure the fruit in place, offering better protection than a standard tray. The 27- pound euro box is another measure to reduce potential bruising.
"We have resisted retail requests for standard 40-pound boxes - it's just not the right thing for the fruit," Ms. Wolter said. "The moment we disappoint the consumer is the moment Honeycrisp begins to slide in popularity, and we'd prefer to not take that risk."
