01/25/07 From Sliced Apples to Slice Pears

From sliced apples to sliced pears. I'm Greg Martin with today's Fruit Grower Report. The sliced apple market has been up and running for some time now but what about other fresh sliced fruit. Pear Bureau Northwest recently received a grant to study the sliced pear market. Kevin Moffitt is president of the Pear Bureau. MOFFITT: The Pear Bureau received a Rural Development grant from the USDA. It's a one-to-one match, about 26 thousand dollars and the Pear Bureau will be putting 26-thousand to match. We're using the funds to conduct a feasibility study on the sliced pears. Moffitt says there are quite a number of hurdles in bringing sliced pears to the consumer. MOFFITT: There's several. The fact is pears need to be juicy at a certain pressure level before they're tasty before the consumer will accept them so that's a big hurdle; the taste factor. But there's also - pears need to be consistently ripened in the same box that's being cut for example. There's a packaging hurdle we have to look at and there's yields. The equipment that's out there now to cut the apples doesn't really work that well on pears. So how soon before we start seeing sliced pears in the marketplace? MOFFITT: I think we're not that far away. I think it's very possible we could see some fresh cut in the retails maybe as early as next year or possibly in food service in the next crop year as well. That's today's Fruit Grower Report. I'm Greg Martin on the Northwest Ag Information Network.