10/04/07 Worldwide Pear markets

Worldwide Pear Markets. I'm Greg Martin with today's Fruit Grower Report. Northwest pears are found all over the world. Pear Bureau Northwest markets their product through many different representatives around the world and according to Jeff Correa the International Marketing Manager for the Bureau, they recently brought many of those reps together. CORREA: We invited in all of our international reps, we have 16 rep offices and from those offices we brought in 23 people to Portland and then up through the growing districts. We had two days of meetings in Portland where we discussed new marketing techniques, new strategies and new markets and shared experiences from certain success stories in one market and how that might be applicable to some of our other international markets. According to Correa, those pear markets are a multicultural mix of nations. CORREA: Mexico, Brazil, Venezuela, India, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Viet Nam, Indonesia, Singapore, people from Lebanon that do our work in the Middle East, persons from Saudi Arabia, person from Belgium, Germany, Russia and the UK. Many of these people had not seen first hand how the pear production was handled. CORREA: For the people who haven't been out here and haven't seen how the pears are harvested and they're packed and the care and attention that goes into that, I think it was really eye-opening for them and when they go back to their markets and when they're talking with the retailers or importers there to be more passionate about what they're talking about because they can actually tell them what they saw and how good the pears looked. That's today's Fruit Grower Report. I'm Greg Martin on the Northwest Ag Information Network.