The landscape of apple varieties has changed a lot in the past 20 years from the introduction of varieties such as Fuji and gala to new proprietary varieties. In the latest episode of the “Tip of the Iceberg” podcast, Chris Sandwick, director of marketing with Hess Bros. Fruit Co., shares the challenges and opportunities apple marketers face when introducing a new proprietary variety.
Hess Bros. Fruit, a third-generation apple packer and marketer, works with approximately 60 apple growers across the mid-Atlantic from New York to Pennsylvania to Virginia. Its proprietary variety, WildTwist, is a cross between Honeycrisp and cripps pink (the cultivar marketed as Pink Lady) and is available at retailers from January to June.
“It’s not something that comes right off the tree and into the store,” Sandwick said. “It is something that really shines and is meant to exist in a time where the rest of the category traditionally has lagged a little bit.”
Sandwick details the research and development that went into the release of WildTwist and the challenges Hess Bros. Fruit faces with introducing a variety into a market filled with proprietary varieties. Honeycrisp, Sandwick said, changed the marketing of apple varieties.
“The success of Honeycrisp was just completely unexpected and a massive boost to the industry overall,” he said. “It also inspired this search for the next great thing.”
Sandwick said Hess Bros. Fruit growers first planted test trees of what would become WildTwist in 2008, then continued to expand its research to growers in more states to see how the cultivar faired in different climates. By the 2010 growing season, Hess Bros. Fruit decided to move forward with marketing the cultivar. He said a major challenge the marketer faced was both in presenting this new cultivar to retailers and naming the new release.
“For a while, if you were going to go to a consumer or a retailer, you could say that you were new and new brought you to a certain level of cache,” Sandwick said. “Now, they hear new, and they go ‘Yeah, I’ve heard about 10 new varieties.”
He said even varieties with names using the words crisp or crunch have also become trite.
“What we did was we went from a handful of special apples that were new and unique and had a brand to now that is getting fast to be the majority of the category, so we’ve essentially commoditized ‘newness’ and so now we have to add other elements that appeal to retail,” Sandwick said.
Sandwick said Hess Bros. Fruit landed on the name WildTwist as a nod to its parentage and approached working with retailers on a more customized level to help create return customers.
“Retailers are busy they have thousands of SKUs that they need to sell within the produce department, so it is our job to make sure that it’s interesting and valuable for them,” he said. “We don’t have the opportunity to just be unique because we’re new like we once had in the category. … We looked at it as what we’re looking for is that retail commitment and that retail shelf space then we need to meet them on their terms and on their turf.”
Sandwick said the true endgame for introducing WildTwist is to ensure it’s a viable and successful venture for all entities involved, from grower to packer and marketer to retailer.
“It has to be a profitable product for the growers, and then on the other side of it, it has to be a profitable product for retail. One can’t exist without the other,” he said.
Watch the full interview on the video player above.
