The US pear industry has enjoyed major success with its consumer-oriented ripening programme, and growers are seeing significant increases in return as a result.
Dennis Kihlstadius, who works with the Northwest Pear Bureau, told delegates at last week’s Prognosfruit conference in Kent about the US sector’s Check the Neck for ripeness scheme and how the industry’s ethylene-ripening programme, using ripening rooms and ripening capsules, has helped encourage sales and secure new customers.
“About eight years ago we worked with our customers to create some standards in the industry, and then we did in-store trials on conditioned pears,” Kihlstadius said. “Wal-Mart conditions its own pears and sales have gone up in double digits since they started. In the first year, sales shot up 36 per cent.
“A properly ripened pear can have great flavour and can encourage consumers to buy the fruit again and again. And grower returns are pretty good.”
Many US retailers now advertise if pears are pre-ripened, and 45 per cent of the industry’s Anjou volumes are sold conditioned, along with seven per cent of its Bartlett pears.
The industry has begun searching for consistent terminology that accurately sums up in consumer-friendly parlance the condition of the ripened fruit when on the shelf, added Kihlstadius.
No comments yet