WENATCHEE, WA – As the company is seeing a boost in its organic production and volume, CMI Orchards has announced that retailers will be able to increase their own sales this season with further focus on organic apples and pears.
“The rebound from a short crop last year combined with new orchards achieving certification, increased CMI’s overall organic volume by 60%,” stated CMI Vice President of Marketing Steve Lutz. “This has really opened the door for supermarkets to aggressively merchandise, promote, and sell organic apples and pears.”
The company stated in a press release that both its organic apple and pear production is up by 60% over last season, which has set up CMI Orchards’ retail customers to sell organics at a record pace. To further boost sales, the company suggests that retailers “build basket size” by transitioning conventional apple buyers up to organic apples as well.
CMI Orchards finds leveraging natural “entry points” for shoppers as a key opportunity to build retail organic sales, as the company has seen with its Daisy Girl Organics™ brand.
“We know from the success of our top selling Daisy Girl Organics™ brand that when consumers make the shift from conventional to organic, they first look for the common organic version of the apple variety they currently buy,” continued Lutz. “Retailers can best leverage the organic opportunity by initially focusing sales programs on the widely popular core varieties like Gala and Red Delicious.”
Lutz also stated that the company has seen data showing certain organic varieties to have low retail price points, which can further engage potential shoppers. This data also reflects boosted organic sales opportunities with retailers through marketing means.
“National scan data shows that organic Red Delicious have the lowest retail price point of all major organic apple varieties, even lower than conventional pricing for many niche apples,” said Lutz. “Sharp retailers are using organic Red Delicious and Gala apples to create low-price entry points to entice potential organic shoppers. This has the added benefit of building organic sales for the retailer while reinforcing a value message with consumers.”
CMI Orchards’ Daisy Girl Organics Account Manager, Loren Foss, stated that brand now offers 19 different varieties of apple and pears to allow retailers an opportunity to implement a full organic pouch bag lineup.
“Two pound pouches are completely changing organic apple and pear merchandising,” said Foss. “National scan data shows that two pound pouch bags are the fastest growing segment of the organic apple and pear business. It’s just a superior package for selling organics.”
This packaging push for 2 lb pouch bags has been a huge hit thus far with consumers, said the company.
“Daisy Girl has the #1 selling branded two pound pouch bag for organic Red Delicious, Gala, Honeycrisp, Fuji, KIKU®, Kanzi®, and RosaLynn apples as well as Anjou, Bosc, Bartlett and Red Pears,” Foss stated. “With CMI’s big jump in organic production, we expect to deliver record sales for our retail customers.”
As the current season progresses, keep up with AndNowUKnow for the latest in apple and pear announcements.
