More On Small Pears

More On Small Pears. I'm Greg Martin with today's Fruit Grower Report.

This years pear crop will not be a record breaker and will have a lot of smaller sized fruit which Kevin Moffitt with Pear Bureau Northwest says will be a positive.

MOFFITT: Quite often a retailer won't put two sizes on especially in bulk because they're often priced at a different price point. Large fruit being a little bigger, a higher price point than the small fruit, people get confused at the checkout. Checkers often don't know the difference and they will charge the lower price for the large fruit or whatever.

He says this is where smaller fruit comes in.

MOFFITT: If they can put a bag in with smaller fruit there's no issue at the check out and we're seeing a lot more interest in that type of merchandising in the last couple of years and we're really promoting the back to school, the smaller size for the lunch box. We're talking to retailers about having four pears for a $1.00 or a single price point for a certain amount of fruit.

Speaking of merchandising.

MOFFITT: We've got a full program lined up for the domestic program especially but we also have plenty lined up for export. Talking about domestic, we're really pushing the snacking aspect of pears. People are snacking more today. They're not eating traditional meals so we're capitalizing on that with the small sizes available this year that's going to be even more popular.

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