REEDLEY, CA -- It came as a surprise to the staff of the Reedley, CA-based California Tree Fruit Agreement, which had recommended a budget for the 2006 marketing season based on a steady-as-she-goes 20-cents-per-carton assessment on California peaches, nectarines and plums. But since the lighter crop volume would have necessitated a cutback in certain promotional programs if the assessment level were unchanged, the peach and nectarine committees both voted to increase their assessment by one penny, to 21 cents a carton, in order to be able to fully fund the planned programs.

The assessment increase for peaches and nectarines was proposed and approved at the CTFA spring meetings held in Parlier, CA, April 27. "That passed overwhelmingly," said CTFA President Blair Richardson.

The California Plum Marketing Board could not follow suit, as it is limited by its charter to a 20-cent assessment.

CTFA is "always looking to increase the effectiveness of promotional programs," Mr. Richardson said. "One of the things I dedicated myself to when I came to this organization was that we would create programs and then ask the industry to fund those programs instead of asking the industry to fund a certain amount of money " and then create programs to match the allotted funding.

This year, CTFA developed a portfolio of promotional programs that it expected to implement, but chose not to ask for an assessment increase to fund them all when it became apparent that the crop was going to be a little lighter than originally anticipated. Instead, the staff recommended holding off on some of the programs for this season.

"All of us on the staff were very surprised" when the committee members decided to increase the assessment rather than cut back on promotional activities. "We hadn't asked for that. We had recommended 20 cents," Mr. Richardson said.

"All of the programs that we have created can be implemented, and most of them will be now," he said. "It is more the degree of implementation that we were worried about because of the lack of budget that we had."

Some of the planned programs still face an uncertain future for the current season, however, because their implementation will be "predicated on whether we have partners to offset the costs of implementing those programs."

Mr. Richardson emphasized that the extra penny per carton allocated by the nectarine and peach programs will be "specifically targeted toward domestic marketing programs. What that will allow us to do," he said, "is to be able to create and provide tools that the industry can utilize this year, as well as in the future."

This year, some 16,100 stores are working with CTFA on various programs. That is roughly double the 8,000 stores that participated last year, according to Mr. Richardson.

Among the programs on the docket for the year are a Tasty Tunes promotion, a Moosic & Moovies promotion and a Summer Sangria Splash promotion.

Tasty Tunes, as CTFA's Sheri Mierau, vice president of marketing explained, is a continuation of a program that ran last year in cooperation with Fresh Express. Consumers who buy two bags of salad and three pounds of fruit will earn free song downloads from iTunes, she said.

The Moosic & Moovies promotion will be a tree fruit and dairy promotion that rewards customers with incentives from iTunes in the form of free song downloads and from Fandango in the form of "Fandango movie bucks."

Summer Sangria Splash will be a tie-in with wine and fresh fruit, with "Fandango movie bucks" as a reward for the purchase of participating brands of wine "along with at least three pounds of California peaches, plums and nectarines."

(For more on Summerwhites, see the May 29 issue of The Produce News.)