Pear Contest & YMCA Promotion

Pear Contest & YMCA Promotion. I’m Greg Martin with today’s Fruit Grower Report.

I love a good pear. Juicy and sweet. I also love a good contest where you can win a great prize. Win a trip to have dinner for two in the Pear Bureau’s The Time is Ripe Sweepstakes. Cristie Mather, Director of Communications for Pear Bureau Northwest talks about the choice of cities for the contest.

MATHER: We based it on where our website followers are coming from; so our existing followers and also where are social media followers are from because on Facebook we can see the top cities that people are logging in and engaging with us online. And so we kind of tailor that to our existing fans.

Fresh pears delivered to your doorstep is a tasty second prize and several are chosen each week as well. Mather says they are also working with the YMCA.

MATHER: Another early season promotion that we have is we’re partnering with 100 YMCA Fitness Centers nationwide and in each fitness center throughout the month of October we’ve been promoting pears. We have posters and brochures and they synch up with the ad creative from our print ad campaign that’s in the different food publications this November through February.

This past weekend they did pear sampling in many YMCA locations.

MATHER: We’re distributing recipes and brochures and information about the different varieties of pears as well. The main thrust is check the neck for ripeness so we’re making sure to sample nice ripe pears at these YMCA locations so that the consumers can have a really nice, sweet and juicy treat while they’re there

That’s today’s Fruit Grower Report. I’m Greg Martin on the Ag Information Network.