Marketing Fruit

Marketing Fruit. I’m Greg Martin with today’s Fruit Grower Report.

During the recent Washington State Hort convention the subject of marketing apples and cherry’s came up as part of a discussion group. Dawn Gray, Senior Vice President, Categories & Marketing with the Oppenheimer Group talked about the group and how they fit in.

GRAY: We are involved in bringing produce from North America and around the world. we’re predominately focused in selling into the U.S. although we do some export business. We get involved in a lot of different areas along the supply chain from crop forecasting to retail promotions to financial support.

She says they have a great, long history of apple innovations.

GRAY: It goes back to the Granny Smith apple in 1956. There were some Granny Smith apples that were on their way to Hawaii apparently and there was some issue with USDA clearance even back then so Oppenheimer got the call in Canada and said we’ve got these Granny Smith apples do you think you guys could do something with them in Canada? And that was the beginning for us.

Gray says one of the things Oppenheimer does is matchmaking.

GRAY: We think about global matchmaking because it is looking more and more at those product characteristics. What;s the flavor, what’s the size, seasonality? Cost of production is becoming increasingly important part of that discussion. Growing regions. Marry them to the preferred characteristics of cultural cues and as an example. Conventional wisdom would say that Asia wants large, sweet, big, red apples. Some areas of Asia will take small apples

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