The parentage of apples evaluated in this customer survey appear in Table 11. Some are chance seedlings that were discovered growing wild in or near orchards and their attributes recognized. Others were recognized as the result of bud mutations. By far the majority of these varieties are the product of controlled breeding programs. It is interesting to note that 25% of the varieties have Golden Delicious as one of the parents.
| Table 11 |
Summary & Conclusions
- There appears to be strong interest by consumers to have new apple
varieties available to purchase. In the survey, over 90% of the participants
indicated that they would travel to a roadside stand just to purchase
new varieties. On average, participants indicated that they would
travel 13.3 miles to purchase new apple varieties. Consumers with
a passion for certain apples would travel much longer distances.
- Consumers have varied tastes. Therefore, having varieties available for all taste profiles is a good strategy for selling new varieties to all customers.
- The apple purchasing habits of customers who frequent roadside stands appear to be different from those purchasing apples at grocery stores. This was made quite evident in a review of the varieties that survey participants normally purchase. This should be considered an opportunity to expand the sales base.
- Growers may fear that the purchase of new apple varieties will come at the expense of sale of other varieties. While this may occur to a very limited extent, we feel that the overall result will be a per-capita increase in sales of apples at a roadside stand. We base this statement upon the enthusiasm of participants who took part in this survey and repeat customers who frequent the UMass CSOREC.
- We feel that the strategy outlined in Table 1 is a good one and provides customers access to new varieties throughout the marketing season and provides the grower with expanded opportunities for sales to enthusiastic customers.
- New varieties should be a sales focus, since many of these varieties equal or surpass the market leaders of Delicious, Gala, etc. and they are not widely available. It strongly supports a premise of this report that consumers are looking for new things to try.
Acknowledgements
We gratefully acknowledge the support of the Massachusetts Department of Agricultural Resources through the Marketing Grant Program (110107-1584) and support from the University of Massachusetts College of Natural Resources and the Environment. |
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