Two of the UK's leading top-fruit suppliers say they see excellent opportunities for Smitten, the brand name used for an early-harvesting apple called PremA17 that was first bred in New Zealand by crossing Royal Gala and Braeburn with two English varieties, Fiesta and Falstaff.

Their comments come as Prevar, a joint venture company based in New Zealand that manages the horticultural and commercial development of new apple and pear varieties, confirmed it had granted licences to the two companies – Empire World Trade and Worldwide Fruit – allowing them to grow, market and sell Smitten in the UK.

Prevar has now agreed five licences for the variety worldwide, including three in the northern hemisphere, in an attempt to create year-round supply and demand for the apple in Australasia's key export markets.

'A brand-management licensing approach will be used with new variety product consistency and marketing discipline achieved through licensed use of the Smitten brand,' explained Brett Ennis, chief executive of Prevar.

The first English-grown Smitten apples went on sale at selected Morrisons stores last month, following a two-year commercial trial selling the fruit exclusively through the UK retailer.

Worldwide Fruit technical director Tony Harding said he believed that Smitten's good eating quality and storage potential marked it out as a highly promising early-season apple.

'Its harvest window will be attractive to growers and we have already seen in the UK Morrisons having good success with selling New Zealand-grown product,' he said.

'The variety has been under trial in the UK for three years now and year after year the fruit has scored very highly during new variety benchmarking sessions.'

He added: 'We expect strong interest from growers and retailers alike for this variety and plan to develop the planting programme in line with the interest and potential sales opportunity.'

Smitten is reported to have performed very well at Empire World Trade's research and development orchard, according to Robert Jarvis, development technologist at the group.

'It is unusual for an early-maturing variety as it has excellent texture and flavour which is retained throughout storage and shelf-life,' said Jarvis.

'Smitten is a variety which appears at this stage to crop well under UK conditions and is expected to result in a high level of consumer satisfaction leading to repeat purchase.'

Ennis said Prevar was delighted to be working with two of the UK's high-profile top-fruit companies and considered their collaborative approach towards the variety's development the best way of exploiting its full potential in the market.

Ennis said: 'By working with both organisations we have provided a platform to exploit Smitten across the entire UK retailer and grower base.'

'Both organisations have extremely strong links to UK growers and they dominate the domestic production and sales in the UK industry.'

Harding added: 'We believe that collaboration on new varieties and research priorities has been long overdue in the UK top-fruit industry and we are very pleased to have developed a unique relationship with Empire World Trade on the development of Smitten-brand PremA17.'

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