The following is a Q & A with Alan Taylor, who spent his entire career working with apples, among other fruit, and helped introduce the Pink Lady apple to the market. At a time where new apples are being introduced to the market at what seems to be a rapid pace, I thought it would be interesting to learn more about what it takes to bring a new apple to the market.
Please provide a brief description of your work with apples over the years.
- I grew up on a Winesap apple/Concord grape farm, with the apples going to Tree Top for apple rings at retail and the grapes to Welch’s. I covered the Washington Fruit Industry as the Associate Editor for the Good Fruit Grower for eight years, as well as being the Sales Promotion Manager for Washington State Fruit Commission/Northwest Cherry Growers.
- I was the Marketing Director for E.W. Brandt & Sons Inc. from 1988 to 2016, which involved hundreds of acres of apples and is a major nursery for apples and soft fruits, such as peaches, nectarines and apricots.
- I assisted in the development of the Associated International Group of Nurseries, covering standard and new apple varieties in ten countries around the world, which later included working on the building of the Pink Lady® Brand Apple and the Proprietary Variety Management (PVM), which led to the Cosmic Crisp® apple.
Which apple cultivars have you worked with?
I’ve been attached to many apple cultivars over the years through Brandt’s Fruit Trees. This included marketing fruit trees to growers after they were first started and grown in Oregon. The most recent cultivars were Pink Lady® and Cosmic Crisp®, with Cosmic also involving the Washington State University breeding program.
What is the overall process that goes into bringing a new apple to the market?
This is usually a 20 plus year process, working through breeding programs, such as the one at Washington State University. However, Pink Lady (Cripps Pink) came out of Western Australia over 40 years ago and has since undergone the crossing of its parent varieties, extensive testing and now nearly 25 years at U.S. retail outlets.
In general, the process of bringing a new apple to market is as follows:
- Seeking new plant material – With us, this started many decades ago but more ‘recently’ in the ‘80’s with a worldwide search through our international group of nurseries.
- Evaluations – Many evaluations are performed on the trees and the fruit they produce in test plots.
- Distribution – Those few cultivars that make the cut are propagated and sold to growers.
- Consumer Research – These days, through PVM, the fruit with promise is subjected to a process similar to other new products in other industries. These involve consumer research, etc., and other evaluations including retail taste testing.
- Introducing New Apples to Retail – The key is working with the apple industry growers and packers to help introduce the new apple to retail. In cases, such as with Cosmic Crisp, this included an industry supported program partially based on a per tree charge. The Cosmic Crisp apple has a marketing budget of over $10 million to be spent during a five-year period (more on WSU contribution below).
What was your role in bringing Pink Lady Apples to the market?
As a new apple to the U.S. in 2001, it mostly involved a number of introductory measures with me and a part-time assistant acting as the ‘staff.’ This, of course, also included the PMA (Produce Marketing Association) show, where, in the beginning, it was estimated that less than 10 percent of the attendees had heard of this apple, let alone had tasted it.
We worked closely with our growers/shippers to help get the word out to retail connections. I also traveled the country making contacts with major supermarket produce buyers and merchandisers. We were also tied in with the American Heart Association HeartCheck Mark for three years, which focused on the healthy aspects of Pink Lady Apples.
How many years did you spend working on the Pink Lady Project?
I worked on this project for around 15 years, before retiring. I worked as the Pink Lady Marketing Director, while also helping the nursery with the fruit crops grown on the parent farm (1,200 acres), the introduction of PVM and the continued role played by our international nursery group.
Once a new apple cultivar reaches the market, how much additional time is spent on additional growth and management at the market front?
This is very difficult to answer, since there are so many factors involved. These days, a major factor would be if it is part of a program like PVM, such as with the Cosmic Crisp. (Actually, PVM is the only industry program of its type.) This is unlike the old days when a new apple was just thrown out on the market to be the new kid on the block for a couple of weeks before usually heading to the processor. (In the early days, growers usually had little in the way of marketing backgrounds.)
If it’s one of the apples without a major program backing it, it has to have something very special going for it, even if one of the major growers/packers/marketers is handling it. For example, with the Honeycrisp apple. It was released in 1991 by the University of Minnesota without being backed by a major marketing program, and it was not until around 2005 before it really caught on. It was word-of-mouth marketing with consumers finally discovering it and telling other consumers about it. However, nothing lasts forever, with growers and packers throwing a huge amount of it away.
The story most illustrative of Honeycrisp can be seen in observing an orchard just after harvest, as the primary feature is often an orchard floor full of fruit. This is more often the case because there are times when pickers are thinning out ‘damaged’ fruit, but it also shows a major problem with this variety. I’ve heard growers joking about Honeycrisp saying they lose half of it at harvest and ‘another half’ of it on the packing line. While researchers continue to seek fruit without so many growing problems, what’s being faced is an apple where much is lost on the way from the tree to retail. This may work when grower prices are sky high, but when those prices are coming down as overall production increases, there may come a time where a ‘breaking point’ is reached.
How is the marketing funding amount per new apple cultivar determined?
First, there’s a history here. For many years, this was pretty much handled by the Washington Apple Commission, which was supported by a grower per box charge, which I believe amounted to upwards of over $20 million per season. This ended around 18 years ago as the larger packers decided it made more sense for them to fund their own marketing/branding.
The Cosmic Crisp (from the WSU breeding program) is indeed unique as the WSU Board of Directors approved $10.1 million of funding over four years to support its consumer marketing campaign. It also provides royalty revenue from licensing WSU’s intellectual property rights to cover some expenses. I believe there’s also a per tree fee paid by growers at the nursery level that is also going into its marketing.
The Pink Lady financial program was the first international program representing multiple nations growing this apple, which was to involve common packaging and marketing, and a per carton charge ($1.25) for use of the Pink Lady Trademark. It failed in the end, mostly due to partnership differences.
There may be grant money available for new apple cultivars to enter the market, but that does not occur often and is not much.
Why are there so many different types of apples currently on the market?
Currently, we are seeing some longtime favorites starting to fade as new varieties are continuously being introduced, and at a time when it can cost as much as $40,000 per acre to do so. The Red Delicious, the longtime Queen of the apple industry, is one of those seeing a drop in production, although it still commands a very large volume (only slightly below Gala). Gala has had impressive totals for many years and will likely continue to be very popular.
The Golden Delicious, another longtime favorite, which has paid the price of being difficult to handle without bruising (and, therefore, picked before reaching high sugars and flavor) has also been falling in volume. However, these last couple of years it appears this lower volume is resulting in better pricing and, likely, happy growers.
Even though it does well in exports, the Red Delicious will continue to fade as prices are currently only close to or below break even. One continuing problem is that while having traditional good looks, too often the Red Delicious doesn’t have the flavor consumers are finding in some of the new varieties.
The Fuji seems to have fallen to moderate in popularity and may be seeing a lack of consumer push. The Pink Lady, which continues to provide good grower returns seems to be locked into a slow growth trend, while Granny Smith appears to be stable as this tart cooking apple remains a Food Network star. Ambrosia is a good choice and there have been raves for Cosmic Crisp, but its real future is yet to be fully determined. Currently, and in the years ahead, the consumer will increasingly be demanding flavor, not looks!
Which apples do you think will phase out in the next couple of years?
I’ve already touched on this, but when talking about apples, such as the Red Delicious and others, any phasing out will likely take a much longer time as they still have a fan base and it’s so costly for them to be replaced.
Much of the nation’s apples are grown in Washington State (171 million boxes in 2018) and, therefore, have a major impact on changes in the volume of certain varieties. When viewed on a national basis, and with Red Delicious being a prime example, what happens in Washington pretty much reflects what’s happening with that variety. And in the case of the Red Delicious, it’s now coming down from around 30 million boxes, which by itself matches or beats the total production in the other ‘major’ apple production states, such as New York (31 million) and Michigan (28 million). So, the falling production of Reds in Washington really tells the story of what’s going on with that apple.
Any up and coming apple cultivars that will rock the market?
Cosmic Crisp looks like the only one in a position to really rock the market. It’s the only new one with millions of trees in the ground (and more coming), and millions of dollars to be devoted to it (at least over the next four years).
There are other apples from other breeding programs that could well make some noise, but the Cosmic Crisp will rule in the produce department and in the produce media. The next apple out of WSU, the Sunrise Magic, may be finding some fans, but it’s not likely to challenge Cosmic Crisp in a number of marketing-related areas.
Are Pink Lady Apples still your favorite?!
Of course, and I’ve actually pretty much ignored Cosmic Crisp (WA 28) recently since we were eating and tasting it back in 2014 while working on its program with the leaders from WSU.
I like Pink Lady for a number of reasons, but mostly because I like its sweet/tart flavor, even if some think it’s only sweet or tart. Being, to me, sweet/tart and very crisp, it reminds me of the Winesap, which is the apple my father grew and what I ate growing up. It was certainly sweet/tart and a great keeper, which made it very popular in the 50’s and 60’s before the development and use of CA (Controlled Atmosphere) Storage. There are now only around a thousand boxes of Winesap grown in Washington State each year.
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Marvelously well structured, valuably informative, and, your questions, Megan, were very appropriate and focused!!
Thank you very much!!
Eric-Helge Sorensen