Honeycrisp offspring variety to reach 2,000 U.S. stores this season
It may not have the renown of its forebear Honeycrisp, but Honeybear Brands' relatively new PazazzĀ apple variety is making an impact at retail while proving less finicky in the orchard for growers.
The volumes are quite smallĀ in the big scheme of the U.S. apple market, but according to VP of sales and marketing Don Roper, young orchards are coming into production and output - as is the case with apple trees - is on an exponential growth path.
"This is really our third year of going to market with Pazazz, and weāll be in about 20 retailers in overĀ 2,000 stores this year," Roper told www.freshfruitportal.com at the Produce Marketing Association (PMA) Fresh Summit event in Orlando recently.
The cultivar is grown in Washington State, the Midwest, New York and Nova Scotia, and in each of those locations Honeybear is touting the fruit as local so it can be as fresh as possible for the end consumer.
"But the reality is weāre going to grow it in all those locations because itās a national apple and has national appeal," he says.
The space for new apple varieties has become fairly saturated in North America, but with a targeted approachĀ the Pazazz could claw its way into the market by tapping into demand for the Honeycrisp snap while appealing toĀ different flavor preferences.
"Itās a brave new world out there with these new varieties. There are a bunch of new varieties that are coming, and I can tell you 99% of them arenāt going to make it," he said.
"You canāt kid yourself that just because you have a new variety or the club variety du jour, it has to pass the consumer test.
"If Mom doesnāt like this apple, donāt spend your time on it because itās so expensive to put these orchards on the ground. Thatās where weāve done a lot of research at the consumer level to make sure this product is right," he said, adding retail introductions have been taking place at a grassroots level for the last few years.
But what exactly is it about Pazazz that makes Roper and his colleagues see so much potential? The answer lies partly in its parent, the Honeycrisp.
"When you talk to the guys in cultivar development who are really trying to grow that next stage apple, they're saying 'I want toĀ take the genetics of the crunch of the Honeycrisp and put it into a new apple'," Roper said.
"So it'sĀ not necessarily the flavor; it's the texture. When you bite into it there's no softness to it, it's really crisp, it's fresh and there's aĀ delicate cell structure inside where you bite into it and it cleaves off and snaps.
"That'sĀ what weāre trying to put into the next generation of Honeycrisp children."
He said the work then was to look for "different flavor profiles, different windows".
"Honeycrisp struggles to be a really good apple four or five months into the season because when itās harvested its starch level is really low - it's almost nothing.
"Itās a great apple off the tree, the best appleĀ in the world off the tree, but after four or five months in storage that kind of wanes and then you're left with a crispy apple, a pretty apple, but an apple with no flavor."
The question for the team at Honeybear Brands then was how to take that texture and put it in an apple with "longer legs".
"That's Pazazz. When we harvestĀ Pazazz our starch level is a little higher, we have high brix, a good acid in there," Roper said, adding the cultivar was an open pollinated cross, meaning one parent was Honeycrisp and the other is uncertain.
"And as that sits in storage you give it aĀ good month and a half and the starch are converting to sugars, it's getting that good blend ofĀ acid-starch-sugar brix mix, and then all of a sudden you have an exceptional apple that has the legs to go from November all the way to May.
"Thereās such a complexity of Pazazz ā itās got a nice flavor in it, itās got nice sweetness, itās got a hint of acid and tart in it, and itās really pretty. It snaps and itās crispy, so they get an experience theyāre not getting with other apples."
One of the issues the breeders have also sought to overcome with Pazazz is the cultivation difficulties associated with its ancestor.
"Every little issue thatās out there for growing an apple, the Honeycrisp has," Roper said.
"We want to make them more grower-friendly too. So does it have less bitter pit? Is it not going to be a biennial growing apple?
"It doesnāt work if you have a great apple that agronomically you canāt grow profitably, or it doesnāt go down a line, or it bruises, or has all those issues behind it."
With such strong demand in the U.S., Roper does not have any immediate export plans for the apple, although he is optimistic about the overseas sales potential of another Honeycrisp child currently known as 'Honeybear 42'.
"We call it BRS ā big, red sweet. We think itās a perfect fit for some of these Asian markets."
The apple does have an international presence however, albeit a small one in some test orchards in Chile.
"Weāre doing our research down in Chile to seeĀ how that could come into play, and whether that providesĀ us with the Southern Hemisphere component so that we can bring fruit in late summer with Pazazz.
But like Honeycrisp which has also been grown in Chile for several years now, the Pazazz's potential success in the Southern Hemisphere willĀ be based on the same mantra as a property investment - location, location, location.
"Honeycrisp came out of Minnesota, and there was so much focus on it being a winter hardy variety because we have -20Ā°F (-28Ā°C) winters.Ā That tree has got to be able to survive.
"Thatās why when you grow Honeycrisp out in Washington in the southern regions, itās so warm that youāre not going to replicate that Honeycrisp youāre going to see in northern Minnesota. Itās so site specific.
"Itās the same thing in Chile. Your traditional growing regions are a bit warmer, so you have to go find the growing regions for Honeycrisp, for Pazazz, these next generation varieties, where itās cooler."