CHELAN, WA - While summer is officially in full swing—which means cherries, apples, and more cherries—Chelan Fresh is already looking ahead to upcoming seasons, so that the sweet flavors we often crave in summer can continue all year long.
I recently caught up with Mac Riggan, Chelan Fresh’s Director of Marketing, at the United FreshMKT Expo, to find out more about the varieties making a splash in retail now and to get a teaser for the upcoming fall season.
“On our Rockit™ apple, we’re featuring both the tubes here at the Smart booth, and then we have a 3-pound shuttle pack, which we’ve kind of dubbed 'The Millennial Mom’s Cookie Jar.' We like that because moms can take it home, put it on the counter, and we all know the kids eat what they see, but, because it has great shelf-life, it will stay on the counter, and the kids can eat it, and Mom gets what she wants when they eat the good snacks,” Mac shared with me.
Along with the Rockit apple, Mac also highlighted Chelan Fresh’s New Zealand-grown KORU® apple and the SugarBee™ apple, a cross between a Honeycrisp and a Fuji that saw about 70,000 boxes this year. Mac revealed to me that the SugarBee is his favorite apple because it eats really well.
In addition to apples, Mac also spoke about Chelan Fresh’s cherries, including the exclusive Orondo Ruby® cherry, Rainier cherries, and Cowiche cherry, which the company is highlighting under the wild cherry category.
“With cherries, we had a great spring weather, we had great cell division in the fruit, and so we have a really good crop of cherries. They’re a little bigger than last year, the flavor’s great, so I’m anticipating a really good year for both growers and retailers. Heading into this fall, I think we’re going to see the same thing happen with apples,” Mac said.
For more details on Chelan Fresh’s extensive apple and cherry varieties and the upcoming season, check out our exclusive video above.
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