Pears Heart Healthy Pt 2

Pears Heart Healthy Pt 2

Bob Larson
Bob Larson
With today's Fruit Grower Report, I'm Bob Larson. All ten varieties of Northwest pears now have 'Heart Check Certification' from the American Heart Association, up from just four varieties that previously held the heart-healthy distinction.

Pear Bureau Northwest's Kathy Stephenson says the Heart Association agreed the change makes sense ...

STEPHENSON ... "Each of those varieties needs to have a license agreement to them, but we were able to convince them that, 'please, just license all of them' for one set fee so that we can extend YOUR Heart Check Certification as well as really help the retailers know that any of our pears that are on the shelf can have that Heart Check Certification with them."

Stephenson says it removes any possible confusion ...

STEPHENSON ... "That's all really great stuff and really important to not be confusing for the consumer and to really just suggest that paying attention to the foods that you eat and the benefits for your heart is really important."

She says the certification can be easily verified ...

STEPHENSON ... "Ideally, we're going to see maybe the Heart Check logo show up in digital ads as well as print ads that come in our newspaper because now there's not a fear that the wrong pear might be put with it, so we were promoting all varieties of pears and one of them wasn't certified by the American Heart Association, then we would be violation of our agreement. So, a small shift but an important one for making sure that we can strongly promote how pears are Heart Check Certified."

Go to USAPears.org for lots more information along with plenty of tasty recipes.

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