Looking At The Jazz

Looking at the Jazz. I’m Greg Martin with today’s Fruit Grower Report.

Dawn Gray, Senior Vice President, Categories & Marketing with the Oppenheimer Group spent some time at this year’s annual hort meeting talking about the marketing of apples and in particular she focused on the Jazz variety.

GRAY: And then I think the greatest lesson for all of us is to get ready to discover and adjust. It’s been interesting to find that balance of getting a crop to market for global growers and creating international demand.

After a number of years, Gray says the market for the Jazz apple is finally maturing.

GRAY: Looking at this year, if I look at the Washington crop, I’m happy to say that we’re ahead in terms of the velocity of sale and up on price. So it really feels pretty solid in terms of we’ve introduced enough consumers now to Jazz that, I think, the majority of our growing pains are behind us. And it’s a naturally small sized apple which was certainly challenging for the North American market.

Creative marketing is a key when it comes to getting a new product into the consumers hands.

GRAY: There’s starting to be that traction, sort of a kid friendly program; Small Apples for Small Hands. Mom’s don’t like throwing stuff away and they like it less today than they did pre-2008. It’s popular enough now in the U.S. that we’re taking small sizes that used to go to the UK, bringing them here to the U.S. just to make sure we can keep those programs rolling for the benefit of the Washington growers.

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