New apple varieties: red inside and out
Dan Wheat of The Capital Press talks with Bill Howell, the breeder behind the red-fleshed Lucy™ series of apples.
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A new commercialization strategy aims to pull new varieties through the value chain, not push them.
Proprietary Variety Management, a new company helping to commercialize two new red-fleshed apple varieties developed by Bill Howell of Prosser, Washington, is using a different strategy from how varieties have been introduced in the past.
The company’s general manager John Reeves said the value chain starts with the breeder, goes through the nursery, grower, packer, and marketer, and finally reaches the consumer. Everyone has an investment in a new variety, but the breeder and the grower are by far the most heavily invested.
Retailers sell out of SnapDragon apples
Crunch Time Apple Growers’ SnapDragon apples have ended their season with retail partners selling out of the last of the 2016 harvest. Crunch Time’s marketing plan focused on raising consumer awareness of SnapDragon by making it available for consumers to taste.
Crunch Time apple varieties expected up 30% this season
Consumers will have a bigger bite of New York’s Crunch Time apples in 2018-19. Volumes are increasing for the grower-owned organization’s SnapDragon and RubyFrost varieties, grown exclusively in New York. Combined production for the two varieties could increase about 30% this year.
New York apples get their names: SnapDragon and RubyFrost
Names have been given to two new apple varieties formerly called New York 1 and New York 2. The names are SnapDragon and RubyFrost.
The announcement came with promotional materials—logos for both SnapDragon and RubyFrost. Snapdragon’s logo is a stylized dragon curled into an S shape with its name and the words Monster Crunch below it. The name RubyFrost appears in red below a blue stylized snowflake and over the words Cool, Crisp, Craveable.
Chelan Fresh showcases red-flesh apple varieties at Fresh Summit
Chelan Fresh featured apples including SugarBee, Koru, Rockit and three new red-flesh varieties at the Produce Marketing Association’s Fresh Summit Oct. 19-20.
Perhaps some of the most attention-grabbing items at the Chelan booth were red-flesh varieties Lucy Rose and Lucy Glo — the former with red skin and the latter with yellow skin.
