GRAND RAPIDS, MICH. – American consumers are always looking for something new to tickle our palates and to add variety to the shopping routine as well as mealtime. To spice up your apple category, we have three new special packs now available!
- Growers’ Choice Multi-Variety Pack. Perhaps the first clamshell (2.25 or 4.25 lbs.) to contain two premium apple varieties in one package. This clam displays well on end caps or tables, and depending on the varieties selected demonstrates a good color break. Features a Michigan apple-growing family on the label.
- Bake Your Own Apple Pie Pack. Great for Thanksgiving and Christmas promotion – especially for millennial-age and wanna-be bakers. The pie-sized clamshell has a recipe on the container, a QR code that provides baking tips, and eight great-for-baking, EZ-peel Jonagold apples. Sweet holiday feature! (It was featured in this week’s issue of The Packer.)
- Good ‘n’ Sweet Kids Fruit Pack. Cute elephant on the label helps kids “remember” to eat healthy! Holds 4.25 lbs. of kid-sized (138-count size) Michigan apples. Parents won’t say no when kids ask for this cute package.
E-mail us for flyers on these new products, at dawngeers@riveridgeproduce.com. Or call (800) 968-8833.
Quality in orchard, packing plant, everywhere. Michigan is in the midst of possibly our biggest apple harvest ever, and Riveridge packing plants are putting the focus on quality control measures from harvest through shipment.
At Riveridge we use a rigorous multi-point sampling program in the orchard, checking color, firmness/pressure, sugar and starch levels, among other factors before we pick.
Our packing houses use the latest technology and our own seven-layer Q.C. checklist. In addition, we’ve just brought on board two USDA food inspectors who make the rounds of our six Michigan packing houses – a level of assurance most of our competition doesn’t provide.
Maintaining high quality is our highest priority – we want you to have confidence in Riveridge apples week after week!
Apple availability. Michigan weather has continued to work in favor of high-quality, flavorful and colorful apples, which are likely to have excellent storage ability.
Varieties now available are:
McIntosh Gala Jonamac
Honeycrisp Jonathan Cortland
Empire Fuji Golden Delicious
Jonagold Rome Red Delicious
NEW: Ida Red NEW: Braeburn
Merchandising tip: Try a second size of Michigan Apples.
Many retailers are selling bagged fruit, as well as two sizes of bulk apples – to best meet consumers’ needs. While the larger loose apples (70-80 count size) make nice adult lunch snacks (sometimes an entire lunch!), smaller bulk apples (100 count size) are better for children.
One reason is that moms can more easily fit the 100-count size apple through a slicer. Recent Michigan Apple Committee research found that over 90 percent of moms in a focus group used the slicer to encourage their children and families to eat more apples.
Cross-merchandise slicers with your apples. And set up the two-size bulk apples on separate tables, or separate sides of the same table to give consumers clarity in pricing.
Being a good neighbor! We've invited a few dozen gleaners into the Jonagold blocks this weekend and next week to pick as many apples as they can for distribution via the West Michigan Food Bank.
Riveridge Produce has donated apples to the food bank for years through the state-run Michigan Agricultural Surplus System (MASS) that helps defray packing costs, and will likely do that again this year. This is the first time gleaners were brought in to help get the full crop of Jonagolds picked.
Tweetin’ out the latest. For quick updates and photos of Michigan’s comeback apple crop, follow Riveridge Produce on Twitter.
Sincerely,
Dawn Geers Rog Geers Brian Johnson
Melissa Dubridge Russell Comport Don Armock