If a top executive of a leading European producer was correct when he told the Journal last year that pears were a “somewhat forgotten fruit”, then what is happening 12 months on must be seen as somewhat of a revival.
Promotion of the fruit is gaining momentum in the UK market, most intriguingly at the moment through the ‘Ripesense’ packaging set to be trialed by Sainsbury’s, though we tend to lag behind other European countries in the marketing of pears.
A TV advertising campaign in Belgium has aimed to give the fruit a sexier image than it has enjoyed in the past, while Portugal’s Rocha pears have been aggressively marketed for some years as have those of Italy’s Emilia Romagna region.
The Italian agency Centro Servizi Ortofrutticoli (CSO) runs an annual campaign covering promotional activities above and below the line, advertisements in women’s magazines and on national radio networks, events at selling outlets and promotions aimed at showing the versatility of Emilia Romagna pears in cooking.
CSO’s marketing manager Alessandra Ravaioli says: “This is an important yearly project for growers of Emilia Romagna, where 70 per cent of Italian pear production takes place. We have a budget of approximately e300,000 for the campaign, which reaches 30 million consumers each year and has been very successful.”
UK pear growers, whose annual output of around 35,000 tonnes is just a small fraction of the 950,000t produced this year in Italy - the EU’s biggest pear producer by some margin - cannot be expected to come even close to matching that level of marketing spend.
But with home-grown produce accounting for more than 20 per cent of the UK market, there is a realistic level of promotional activity undertaken by English Apples & Pears says the body’s chief executive Adrian Barlow.
“Most of our publicity work is handled on a public relations basis,” he explains, “but then individual marketing organisations handle their own promotions, mainly with supermarkets as 80 per cent of pear sales are now in this sector.
“With four of them - Sainsbury’s, Tesco, Asda and the expanded Morrisons - accounting for the vast majority of that 80 per cent there has to be a tremendous amount of liaison between growers, marketing organisations and the supermarkets in areas such as point of sale and packaging as well as price.”
Of the major retailers, Sainsbury’s claim to lead the way in pears. Apple and pear buyer Neil Gibson says: “We are out-performing the market both year-on-year and in market share. And it’s a category where we see even more opportunity for expansion.
“There’s massive growth potential for pears, particularly with the advent of ripe and ready. The Ripesense packaging we are trialing will hopefully get people who don’t normally eat pears to try them and then continue buying.
“If they’re eaten ripe and ready it’s a far more pleasant experience than biting into a hard, too-crunchy pear. Showing on the packaging that the product is at its optimum will make it much easier for consumers - and they can also have a bit of fun watching the ripeness indicator change colour.”
As explained recently in the Journal, the Ripesense intelligent sensor labels - being trialed from November 24 in 60 stores across the UK - are designed to measure the pear’s aroma and change in colour depending on the ripeness of the fruit.
Red means the pear is unripe and crisp, orange indicates it is firm but slightly sweeter while yellow shows that it is fully ripe and ready to consume. Not quite a traffic light system, then, but Ripesense - already a success in New Zealand, where it was invented - could signal the way to expanding the market for pears.
“It’s an exercise to be applauded,” says EAP’s Barlow. “The more we can present consumers with fruit that meets their preferences the better.
“I would like to see a greater consumer-appreciation of how to ripen pears in the home, a process that can be achieved quite easily. But I shall nevertheless be very interested to see the results of this new labelling, especially the affect it has on sales.”
While Barlow and everyone else involved with EAP will be happy to see rising pear sales in the UK market, they are far from happy with the prices they have been getting during the season to date.
This year’s UK harvest is very slightly down on 2003, but apart from Spain (down 14 per cent) every other EU pear grower, not including the new member states has produced significantly higher tonnages. And the volumes being imported into the UK from Belgium and Holland in particular have led to what Barlow describes as “wholly inadequate prices”.
“UK growers have been unhappy with their returns so far,” he reports. “Dutch and Belgian producers have been marketing very hard into the UK and that’s driven prices down to levels that have been far too low.
“I understand they want to regain their market position after the low crops they had last year, but the UK market has been over-supplied and although English growers have been able to sell their product they’ve been having to do so at wholly inadequate prices.”
Barney Brady, managing director of Kent based fruit supplier Fresh Produce Services, has some sympathy for UK growers but says: “It’s supply and demand, and it’s Holland and Belgium who drive the price. The UK supermarkets use that to set prices for home-grown produce and so English growers feel very vulnerable.”
The distress of English growers at early season pricing levels is not quite matched by their competitors from the Low Countries, where one or two compensatory factors have come into play.
Joop Van Doorn, commercial director of the Holland based Van Doorn International, admits: “Prices in the UK have been disappointing so far because of the volume of pears on the market, and even when prices were dreadful the supply of Conference kept coming because growers needed the empty bins for the bumper crop of Jonagold apples we’ve had in Holland and Belgium.
“That ruined pear prices, but now everything is in cold store and the price is building slowly but surely. On the positive side, when prices are low in a major market like the UK there is the chance to develop exports to other markets. This year, for example, we have been exporting more to the US and to Eastern Europe.
“The UK market is very important to us, though. It’s the highest quality market - British customers are very demanding when it comes to quality, but they are prepared to pay for the best fruit and so we make the price.”
Van Doorn expresses satisfaction at the quality of pears produced this year in Holland, as does Yvonne Geurten of distribution, sales and marketing company The Greenery.
“Quality, size and storage life are looking good,” she says. “This year both the temperature and natural humidity were ideal and a record crop of Conference has been harvested. Due to the big harvest, product can be offered continuously and we expect to be able to deliver to our customers until July 2005.”
According to Eurofel estimates, the Dutch crop was set to total 220,000t, 29 per cent up on last year, while Belgium’s forecast total of 213,000t represents a 20 per cent rise on the 2003 harvest.
Part of the reason for these higher tonnages in each country is the fact many growers having been shifting the emphasis of their top fruit production from apples to pears.
“The importance of pears for the Dutch fruit growing sector has increased significantly in the past decade,” says Geurten. “A part of the decreased apple area has been taken over by pears, mainly due to the success of Conference.
“A moderate sea climate and an increased specialisation of production make Holland the growing country par excellence for Conference, although the position of Doyenne du Comice is relatively decreasing. The Greenery expects a controlled increase of pear area and production for the coming years.”
The situation in Belgium is similar, says Vlam’s Leen Guffens. “Every year more apple growers are changing to pears,” she says, “partly because they have a better price but it is also following the consumer trend.
“This year we have our largest pear production ever. We had a good summer for growing, the fruits are a bigger size than last year and the quality is perfect.”
The quality of the Italian crop has also pleased growers, says CSO’s Ravaioli. “It has been a good season for us,” she says. “The quality of fruit is very good, in particular for brix levels and fruit size.”
The UK is Italy’s third-largest export market, behind Germany and France, with around 13,000t of the total 950,000t production set to be shipped over here according to CSO.
Abate Fetel is the main variety grown in Italy, followed by William and Conference, but Abate is seen as a specialist product in the UK says Keith Butterworth, commercial manager for Worldwide Fruit.
Butterworth, based at the international fruit marketing and distribution company’s Spalding offices, says: “Green William is the most significant of the pears we import from Italy, supplemented by Comice and Conference.
“Red William, Rosada and Abate are more specialist products although there’s been a significant upturn in sales of Red William and blush pears. It was a very successful season for South African blush in the summer and that’s stimulated demand. That’s obviously good for Italian pears and imports have been significantly up year on year.
“The quality is very acceptable this year, the skin finish and flavour are good and we shall have availability right through to Christmas. That’s untypical as we are normally finished by December 8-10, so we shall have a two-week seasonal extension.”
So it should be a happy Christmas for Italian growers, and for Portuguese too following a vastly increased production on their extremely disappointing 2003 season. Just 80,000t were produced, down 22,000t on 2002, but this year’s crop is up by more than 100 per cent to 163,000t according to Eurofel’s figures.
The UK is the main importer of Portugal’s Rocha pears and Butterworth says: “Last year was a failed crop but this year it’s higher than average and the fruit is achieving much better sales.”
As to UK produce, gloom seems to be the current mood of growers, but there could be light at the end of the tunnel. “A lot of the English crop has gone into cold store,” says Barlow, “and hopefully prices will recover later in the season.” Sooner, rather than later, is doubtless the hope of so far frustrated English producers.
POLISH PEAR POTENTIAL
Poland is the only one of the EU’s 10 new member states that has anything like a significant pear-growing industry, though it’s 2004 output of 100,000t (Eurofel estimate) leaves it seventh in the production table behind Italy, Spain, France, Holland, Belgium and Portugal.
While the Poles, as the biggest apple producers in the expanded 25-state EU, could well become a major player in one sector of top fruit, they may find it more difficult to establish themselves in the pear market place.
Philippe Binard of the Brussels based Freshfel organisation says: “Poland may be the largest apple producer in the EU, but their pear production is not a very large proportion of the total EU output and I don’t think that the enlargement will mean a significant change in the pear market.”
Efforts are being made, however, to establish a foothold in the UK market for Polish pears. Keith Butterworth of marketing desk Worldwide Fruit says: “There is an opportunity there. We are having trial shipments this season and we’re expecting to see the fruits of our labours from early December through early April.
“At retail level everyone’s expressed an interest, but of course they have to see the fruit. We’ve been over to Poland twice and we are set for a third visit, and from what we’ve seen there are certainly possibilities - although it’s mainly apple with some pear.
“They’ve got class I retail apples like Royal Gala, and Jonagold in the value sector, but for pears it’s mainly a look-see situation. The Conference out there will arrive in the UK market against strong competition so we have to be careful not to raise the hopes of Polish growers.”
BARLOW LAYS DOWN CHALLENGE
English Apple & Pears chief executive Adrian Barlow is challenging UK pear growers to raise standards towards the levels now being achieved by producers in countries such as Holland and Belgium.
“There are far too many UK orchards that are relatively unproductive,” says Barlow. “Yields are often less than half of those achieved in Belgium and Holland, where a considerable amount of re-planting has been undertaken using good orchard management practices that have led to increased yields.
“Investment needs to be made in areas like high quality storage facilities, and we must start making better use of the scientific advances that have helped towards producing much better fruit.
“If our growers want to compete they know they have to be matching Belgium and Holland. There’s a considerable job to do to bring our orchards up to the levels that are now regarded as standard over there - and I’m very keen to see it happen.”
BREAKING THE CONFERENCE STRANGLEHOLD
Conference is so dominant in the pear sector that the breaking of its stranglehold is nigh on impossible to envisage. The 733,000 tonnes grown in the EU 15 this year represents 30 per cent of the area’s total output and is well over half the amount of the next-most produced pear, the Italian speciality Abate Fetel.
Joop Van Doorn of Holland’s Van Doorn International says: “Every year growers in Holland and Belgium are producing more Conference and we are still planting more trees, so the growth in production will go on.
“That could be worrying in terms of supply, but whereas in Holland and parts of Belgium and England the growing conditions for Conference are excellent, they are not so good in countries like Italy and Spain.
“So I think that volumes of Conference in southern Europe could be reduced, which would mean there would still be lots of room for produce from the northern part of the continent.”
While Conference will undoubtedly continue to be the most popular of pears, however, new varieties are being trialed and indeed being brought to market as the growth in the popularity of the fruit begins to gather momentum.
Nurseryman Will Sibley, who provides promotional support for the French horticultural company Delbard in the UK, says: “As nurserymen we cannot produce enough Conference and I can’t see that situation changing in the foreseeable future.
“But there do seem to be opportunities for new varieties. There could certainly be a market for red or blushed pears. Max Red Bartlett, for instance, is an entirely Red William-type pear that’s very attractive. It’s being grown commercially in France and there are also one or two trial plantations in the UK.
“Other recent additions are making a little mark. Taylor’s Gold has had a successful launch in the UK this year and there’s a very similar French variety, Gourmonde, which could also become quite popular.”
The success of Taylor’s Gold is confirmed by marketeers Worldwide Fruit. Keith Butterworth says: “We’ve been very pleased with the quality and sizing of the fruit and it’s been very well received at retailer level.
“Demand exceeds current supply, but we shall have growth in tonnage during the coming years and we see Taylor’s Gold as a positive growth area.”
Though the breeding of new varieties is most certainly a positive aspect of the pear industry, a note of caution is sounded by Sibley. “Getting new varieties to market is the big issue,” he says.
“A good example is Concorde, the Comice-Conference cross that was launched about 15 years ago with over half a million trees planted in the UK.
“The pears cropped wonderfully well, but they perhaps looked too much like Conference. That may have been their downfall, even though they gave better fruit-size than Conference and had an excellent flavour. Very few of the trees are now left and the vast majority of the orchards have been scrubbed.
“I’m given to understand, though, that Concorde is now making a big push in Washington State and a lot of trees have been planted around Lake Constance in Germany.
“Dutch nurserymen are still producing a lot of Concorde and they wouldn’t be doing that if they weren’t selling. They’re producing around 30,000t a year, the majority of them going to Germany.
“In the marketplace the main UK retail outlets that still run with Concorde are Waitrose and Marks & Spencer, although the big supermarket chains tend not to.
“But Sainsbury’s is looking at varieties such as Delsanne and Delferco, and these pears could end up being used in their Season’s Best range.”
Sainsbury’s is in fact using Concorde in one of its current Season’s Best offers, linking them with Winter Wonder apples in a promotion that has already worked well in a link-up of Conference with Cox apples.
“We are looking at a number of new varieties,” confirms the supermarket’s apple and pear buyer Neil Gibson. “I feel there is certainly a gap in the market for blush varieties, which are visually very attractive and that could be important in getting consumers to try them and hopefully to then continue eating them.”
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