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“ e holiday season is in the fall, so I think that is a great opportunity,” adds Simonian. “I’ve seen grapes in special packaging for Halloween and Christmas, so why can’t we do that for these other fall items?”
EXTENSIONS OF SUMMER
Gerawan Farming of Fresno, CA, pioneered the late peach deal 30 years ago with its late-maturing Prima-branded Gattie varieties of yellow- eshed peaches.
George Papangellin, Gerawan’s sales manager, says demand is so great today that planting for the variety continues, while the company also has propagated a series that matures from early September all the way through late October.
“It is our agship peach,” says Papangellin. “Most of our customers tell us the Prima Gattie ends the stone fruit season as their most pro table peach, so they use Prima Gattie as the focal point in their fall sets.”
Gerawan o ers Prima Gattie-speci c point of sale (POS) material to retailers, but for Papangellin it is the fruit’s size and color in particular that “is a tremendous asset to a thoughtful display.”
He claims for many retailers a program with this fruit has led to year-over-year sales growth in the double digits. Other late-season entrants in the peach space include Last Tango and Autumn Flame.
Papangellin calls for marketers to use Labor Day, Halloween and holiday season prepara- tions, as well as back-to-school and back-to- business fall realities to support sales goals.
Like peaches, table grapes are often thought of as a summer fruit. But John Pandol, director of special projects at Pandol Brothers in Bakers eld, CA, says volume in reality is “half summer, half fall and has been for some time.”
“Grapes are always in the store, so I’m not sure many consumers appreciate the seasonal nature of grapes,” says Pandol.
“Most of the new variety introduction has been mid-season to late varieties, fall grapes,” he says. “ e two that really changed the fall deal were the Scarlet Royal and the Autumn King, both introduced in the mid-2000s and both at 15 million plus boxes within 10 years.”
Freshness has been a key driver of the category’s success, with a steady ow of grapes with staggered maturity between varieties leading to a constant supply in the fall months.
“Freshness impacts texture and mouthfeel. People talk about juicy grapes, but they really want a meaty grape with a well nished inte- rior that is crunchy or chewy,” says Pandol.
“One of the positives of oversupply is a disin- centive to over-store grapes ‘for when the market is better.’ ”
With so many grape varieties now avail- able, Pandol believes the best department margins seem to come for those who advertise a discount on only one SKU (stock keeping unit) in the category while leaving others at the normal price.
“We’ve also observed ‘two and two’ for retailers who carry three colors of seedless plus a red globe, with ad pricing on red seedless and red globe one week and white and black seedless the other,” he says. “Bigger assort- ments have always been popular, the ‘grape-o- ramas’ of old, with all varieties available.”
Pandol adds that retailers can also try using clamshells to separate a specialty variety, while secondary displays and ‘grower packaging’ are also useful. And most importantly, retailers need to be adaptable.
“Retailers need to be exible. e biggest problem I see at retail is poor quality or old-looking grapes because the retailer committed to a program of a variety, organic, a speci c shipper or origin, and he can’t back out,” notes Pandol.
“We saw a large regional chain commit to the regional exclusive on a red seedless variety — the variety was not very good that year, and the rest of market average was 52 percent above them that quarter.”
FALL BERRIES NOT TO BE FORGOTTEN
Another crop that extends into the fall from summer is strawberries. e category may be a comparatively smaller player at this time of year, but growers are taking steps to make the commodity more relevant during the period.
Chris Christian, vice president of the Cali- fornia Strawberry Commission, says the desire of retailers to promote fall fruits should not lead them to abandon strawberries as a top revenue driver in the produce department.
“Fall production in California presents an opportunity to maximize category revenue for the year,” says Christian. “We anticipate weekly volumes of about ve million cartons per week from August through the end of October.
“Retailers should maintain summer berry category space allocation into the fall, using California strawberries as the anchor as seasonal volumes of the other berry varieties begin to decline.”
She explains a portion of Southern Cali- fornia acreage is replanted during the summer months to produce a new crop in the fall.
“ is new production is the reason
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