Organic apple growers bid for shoppers' attention

For fans of organic fruit, there's good news this fall from Washington's apple orchards: More and more organically grown apples are coming to harvest and showing up in Seattle-area stores.

The twofold upshot: A greater variety of organic apples produced by more orchards are appearing in more supermarkets. And rising competition between small organic growers and big ones just entering the field has the smaller farms scrambling for smart marketing tools to create shopper loyalty.

"It's really an exciting story," said Charles Pomianek, director of the Wenatchee Valley Traffic Association, which tracks apple and pear production in that major fruit-growing region.

"I think we're going to see somewhere between 3-½ million and 4 million cartons (42 pounds each) of organic apples this year," compared with about 2 million to 2-½ million last year, Pomianek said, with the 2004 harvest about over. Part of the increase stems from this year's good growing conditions, but it also results from increased organic acreage, he said.

Though organics still represent only a small share of this year's total expected apple crop of about 98 million cartons, they are clearly on the rise — even though shoppers pay about 20 percent more, on average, for organic apples than for conventional ones, according to one marketing official.

What's more, organic growers are keeping up with, or in some cases leaping ahead of, conventional farmers in offering newer apple varieties, such as the spicy-sweet Pinova and the pretty Honeycrisp, now bidding for shoppers' attention in store bins.

"I think what we're seeing is the organic deal beginning to enter its maturing state. It's not (organic apples) just in farmers' markets. We're beginning to see commercial-size growing and packing operations" and more organic apples appearing in conventional supermarkets, said Pomianek.

But taking shape at the same time is competition between the small family farms that have been long been the main source of organic produce and much larger, conventional growers who are beginning to devote at least part of their acreage to organic crops.

Now, 38 of the state's small organic farmers have banded together in a group called Sustainable Organic Family Farms (SOFF) in an effort to grab your allegiance at the grocery store through coordinated marketing.

Their apples are packed by Pac Organic Fruit, a George packing company that is one of the first in the state to pack and ship only organic fruit.

Though most of the SOFF growers have been farming for many years (many raising several kinds of fruit), their first apple harvest under the group banner has come to market this fall in local stores and elsewhere. Seattle-area stores such as Whole Foods Market, Larry's Markets and PCC Natural Markets are among those carrying their apples.

The group's hopes for persuading you to choose their fruit rest with the idea that many consumers not only support organic growing methods but also wish to support small family farms.

But therein lies a challenge — how to let shoppers know that a particular apple sitting in a supermarket bin came from a small, owner-operated farm, as opposed to a huge, corporate grower.

"We want shoppers to be able to identify (SOFF produce) and we are coming to a place where they will be able to do that," said Nancy Dudney, an Okanogan County organic-apple grower and SOFF member who also serves as the organization's marketing agent.

When the group's cherries came to harvest last summer, they appeared in stores in 1-pound containers, each bearing a photo of the particular farm family that grew the cherries. That was a marketing success, said Dudney.

For the fall apple harvest, they considered selling the fruit in four-apple packs, again bearing the grower's photo. But Dudney doubts most consumers want to buy apples that way.

"I think they would rather pick them up in a bunch, and because of that we're looking for another way to market them."

Some apples, including those from her own King Blossom Natural Orchards in Brewster, carry stickers with the farm's name. But many small farms can't afford those individualized stickers, so their apples carry only a generic organic label, she said.

A few days ago, Dudney said, the organization decided to order SOFF-logo stickers to go on every apple, so the fruit can at least be linked to the small-farm group, if not to individual growers. The labels should appear on apples before Christmas, she said.

And she has another idea:

"Maybe we could put up a touch screen, where the shopper could touch any apple name on the screen and then see the orchard where it was picked." That, she said, would help a shopper make a personal connection with the farmer.

Yet another possibility: Persuade stores to identify the grower of particular organic apples with signs. "There are a couple of stores in California that are doing that (with SOFF fruit)," she said.

She's hoping consumers will begin asking stores about the specific sources of organic apples, which she thinks might encourage stores to put up identification signs.

Meanwhile, Washington's organic apple crop, from growers large and small, continues to increase. How the competition shakes out will be worth watching.

Judith Blake: jblake@seattletimes.com