1/11/08 Fruit & Clamshells

Fruit and Clamshells. I'm Greg Martin with today's Fruit Grower Report. I like things easy and convenient. It's a whole lot easier pouring a glass of milk from a carton than chasing the cow around. There's a visual image that'll keep you chuckling. But when I go to the store, I look for convenient products. Up until now, when you picked fresh fruit, you simply dropped them into a bag and watched as the cashier tossed them into a sack. Now comes the Fruitcase". Alan Taylor with Brandt & Sons. TAYLOR: Any time you have a crop that you are trying to market it's important to think about the packaging part of it and with the clamshell which had to adapt to a piece of fruit that's very unique, being a HALO® peach or a flat peach or flat nectarine, it took years of consideration to finally come up with something that we think is going to work in terms of marketing it. The new clamshell design comes in two versions, 4 or eight pack and make grabbing and keeping the fruit much easier. TAYLOR: First of all it does protect the product which is very important, it helps to package something that is unique in shape and in size which is also important and these days when food safety is something that's a consideration and when you want to keep that particular product out of people's hands but yet have something that is convenient for them to pick up and take home, that's something that's certainly a consideration and something that's going to be more important as time goes by. Taylor says it does present them with the opportunity of additional marketing tie-ins that bulk fruit doesn't. The new packaging is presently available in only limited markets. That's today's Fruit Grower Report. I'm Greg Martin on the Northwest Ag Information Network.