Heavy-weight promotions could see this year’s English apple growers get their dream of a flying start to the season.
And alongside the efforts of EAP, Tesco and Sainsbury’s, Worldwide Fruit is working with marketing agency and fresh produce specialist Arbor, to launch a quirky £25,000 roadshow to connect growers with the consumer.
Steve Maxwell, WWF marketing director, said: “Everything depends on October, we need it to work. We’ve got a large crop and we need that initial sales hike.”
He said that while everyone has said they have got plans in place, they need to make sure those plans deliver.
“We want to get people aware of English apples and there are lots of positive messages. The idea is to get the growers out to different events. We’re looking to get an ice-cream van, wrapped in the Union Jack, which we can use to hand out apples to people at different events nationwide.”
On the crop-side, according to Robert Balicki, chairman of WWF, “it’s going to be a vintage year”. Maxwell agreed: “It’s running a little bit later than last year, and size is on the low end of average, but that’s good because of the amount of activity on poly-bags, so it should balance out.”
Cox is looking strong, up by 20 per cent on last season’s volume, while Gala is even better, up a massive 50 per cent.
