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Apple Growers Learn to Compete in a Global Market

By Jeffery Carter Ontario Correspondent

If you’re an apple grower anywhere in North America, you know all too well about competition. It’s like walking a tightrope. The consumer comes first but this must be balanced with the need to turn a profit. There’s no future in growing the apple varieties consumers prefer if the trees that bear those varieties yield poorly. That’s why producers like Hector Delanghe of Delhaven Orchards and his son Mark Delanghe of Sunmark Farms introduce variety changes with care and patience. The elder Delanghe has been growing and marketing apples near Blenheim in Southwestern Ontario for 40 years and his son grew up in the business. Newer varieties are introduced in a small way. The Delanghes plant just a handful of trees to start with. When they begin to bear - about four years later - they’ll start marketing by giving them away at their retail location. It’s a bit of a morbid joke in the industry that apple growers are giving away their fruit anyway, but Delanghe and his son do find merit in their strategy. If the consumers approve and if the trees bear well, the decision to add additional trees to their orchard becomes much easier to make. “We love to do direct-to-consumer sales because that’s how we can find what’s going in on the marketplace,” Hector Delanghe says. “We usually give a new variety away the first year; we ask the consumers, ‘What do you think of this apple?’” There’s a variety of organizations in North America that study variety selection. The fruit testing association in Ontario brings together growers from across the province to consider the various choices. It’s been found that consumer preferences shift. Younger people seem to be drawn to sweet-type apples as opposed to tart apples like the traditional McIntosh. Also preferred are apples with a greenish and yellowish coloring — a possible repercussion of apple imports. Growers in the Great Lakes region compete with growers in Washington state, New Zealand, South Africa, South America and other growing regions. Hector Delanghe says the increased competition from Washington state is at least partially due to Washington’s declining market around the Pacific Rim. Another wild card in the global apple market is the entrance of China to the trade. China has long been considered as a huge market to sell into. The other side of that equation, however, is China’s enormous potential to compete on world markets. Consumers benefit from all this competition. There’s an exciting range of choice and all that competition has driven prices down. As a consequence, growers within the Great Lakes region also need to offer a wide selection - and they often do. The Delanghes, at their small retail outlet, have a greater selection of apples than most supermarkets - and they’re locally grown, to boot. Growers view this abundance of choice in a different light than consumers. While growers sales approach $100 million in Ontario, margins are thin and the frustration factor is high. The fact that a former chair of the apple marketing commission in Ontario recently ripped his trees out is a testament to this frustration. Other groups persevere. Some growers have turned to the juice market to add value to their apples. Others are looking to newer varieties to gain a marketing edge. Decisions concerning varieties are often difficult to make. The Gala variety is a good case in point. It’s been a winner for Ontario growers in the 1990s but the Gala, a cross between Kidd’s Orange and Golden Delicious, was introduced in 1960 - four decades ago. “It took 30 years for the fruit to find its way to the market and it’s only done well for the past 10,” Hector Delanghe notes. It’s the same thing for the Crispin (Mutsu) variety. Developed in Japan in 1948, it only became popular in the Great Lakes region in the past 10 or 12 years. As a consequence, the apple research community plays an important role. People like research horticulturist John Zandstra at Ridgetown College are valued by the Delanghes and other growers. Zandstra described some of the newer varieties available. Honeycrisp, developed in Minnesota, is a cross between the Macoun and Honey Gold varieties and is already being grown by a handful of Ontario growers. From British Columbia are two numbered varieties, one with a pear-like taste and the other that reminds Zandstra of banana. Fuji, another Japanese variety, is also being grown in Ontario. Zandstra says research literature suggests consumers are looking for novel tastes when it comes to apples. The Delanghes feel consumers often look for a specific variety when it comes to apples. Overall, consumers tend to put “taste and texture” over other attributes although such things as appearance and color can also be important.