China Pear Market

China Pear Market. I'm Greg Martin with today's Fruit Grower Report. Kevin Moffitt, president of Pear Bureau NW will be traveling to Asia this week and will be discussing the latest developments now that China has opened their doors to U.S. pears. MOFFITT: We have shipped now just about 10 to 12 containers from last seasons crop. I think about a third of that were red pears and now there's already some fruit on the water from the new crop. So we will be attending a trade show in Hong Kong and Jeff, my export director and I will be traveling up into China to talk to importers and look at the supermarkets and make sure our strategy is on target for continuing to open that market. And of course there is a lot of room for growth in China. MOFFITT: We believe that this year we could be in the neighborhood of 100-thousand boxes or a hundred loads. Which probably a third, maybe 40% would be red pears so we really expect this so we really expect this to be a good red pear market for the industry. He says this is quite exciting for the industry. MOFFITT: It's very exciting for us to open any new market but this one especially being the size that it is, in the neighborhood of 1.3 billion people and there are estimates that 200 to 300 million are in the middle class in China these days so their middle class is growing rapidly. They have a lot of shiny new supermarkets to sell this imported fruit so it is definitely a prize when we can open up a market that size That's today's Fruit Grower Report. I'm Greg Martin on the Ag Information Network.