While the Washington Pink Lady crop has been decimated this year through heavy frost damage, there was still sufficient fruit coming through last November and already on the water for the Co-op to run a consumer promotion backed by Coregeo, the Washington Apple Commission and JP Fruit Distributors.
The result was that winners Derek and Dianne Davies of Dinas Powys, Glamorgan, jetted off to New York last week having filled in a competition leaflet available beside displays of loose fruit at the Pyle branch, near Bridgend, and come up with the best tiebreaker.
Gordon Winterbottom, managing director of Coregeo, said he was very happy with the three per cent customer response and that sales had risen overall. 'It is another example of how we are continuing to lift the whole profile of the fruit as something special,' he added.
George Smith, promotional director of the WAC said that limited supplies of pink apples – of which Pink Lady accounts for 65 per cent – would be available until May.
'We anticipated over 500,000 cartons for the UK before the weather damage,' he said.
That would have continued the rapid rise in volumes, from nothing two seasons ago. However, Smith said: 'Our final export figure will be 10 per cent of the initial estimate.'
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