Year-round availability of Honeycrisp apples will soon become a reality for some retailers and their apple-loving customers. Honeybear Marketing, owner of the commercial rights to the Chilean Honeycrisp, will bring its largest crop of Southern Hemisphere Honeycrisp apples to the United States in late April. This will enable Honeybear retailers to carry Honeycrisp until the grower’s domestic harvest is available in early Fall.

“Perfection at high volume takes time,” Don Roper, vice president of sales and marketing for Honeybear Marketing, said in a press release. “Twelve years ago we searched for and found just the right Chilean location, microclimate and conditions to produce a premium Honeycrisp, and we set about laying the groundwork for today. In all that time our goal was simple: create a perfect Honeycrisp eating apple that together with our domestic crop enables our retail partners to sell, and consumers to enjoy, Honeycrisp at any time of the year.”

Honeybear Marketing — and parent company Wescott Agri Products — was granted the exclusive production and commercialization rights for the original Chilean Honeycrisp by the University of Minnesota, developer and owner of the original variety. The company also has a long history with the Honeycrisp variety and was one of the first growers to produce Honeycrisp in Washington state. Today Honeybear is recognized as a premier Honeycrisp label in the U.S.

“We had tremendous results with last year’s Chilean crop which sold throughout spring and early summer so we really knew this year could be a big game changer for retailers,” Roper said in the release. “This year we will have significant production increases from our Southern Hemisphere crop, meaning for the first time we’re now able to offer an assured, year-round supply of Honeycrisp to our retail partners.”

Harvested and best enjoyed in fall, Honeycrisp is one of the best-selling apples in the U.S. But by spring, late storage domestic Honeycrisp crop begin to lose some condition and flavor. Honeybear’s fresh-picked Chilean Honeycrisp combined with the company’s  domestic Honeycrisp crop grown in Minnesota and Washington state ensures that customers and retailers will now have the best flavor and conditioned Honeycrisp available in the market.