This season’s Honeycrisp apple crop is smaller than last year’s record crop, so apple marketers are making plans to promote other varieties, while still fulfilling the customer demand they created with Honeycrisp.
Don Roper, vice president of sales and marketing for Honeybear Brands BB #:128246 told Blue Book in late November that 2024-25 is a much different Honeycrisp season than last.
“We will have a full season of Honeycrisp available to sell this year – consumers can expect to see Honeycrisp at their retail store locations all year long,” he said.
“However, the retail pricing landscape will look much different than last year. Last year, we produced a record Honeycrisp crop not only in Washington State but also in the Midwest and the Northeast growing regions – nearly 50 percent more Honeycrisp than ever produced before.”
Roper said that led to prices starting high in the fall of 2023, but they fell every week until the end of the summer of 2024.
“With the new 2024-25 crop season, we are seeing just the opposite,” he said. “In fact, total production of Honeycrisp is down across all growing regions, and our remaining inventory to date, is down over 35 percent from the prior year. It has been a low color year, and we are seeing more challenges with production and packouts than we did in the prior year. “
Honeybear Brands encourages retailers to continue to promote Honeycrisps, and Roper said they have.
“As we move into the winter months, for Honeycrisp, we expect to see upward pricing at retail and will experience less Honeycrisp promotions as the industry just has a smaller amount of supply this year,” he said. “The consumer has shown great affinity for Honeycrisp and even at higher prices, we expect to see strong movement for the remainder of the year. This will open the door for other varieties to be promoted and a broader mix of apples will absorb more share of the apple deck.”
Roper said Honeycrisp sales have been brisk this fall, which puts pressure on suppliers to manage the crop in winter and beyond.
“The risk for the industry is we raise prices too high, and retailers quit promoting, and we don’t move the volume necessary to sell through all of our stocks,” he said.
Honeybear has strong supplies of legacy varieties including Gala, Fuji, Granny Smith, Pink Lady, Red Delicious, and Gold Delicious. Roper said the company also has strong promotable volume opportunities for newer varieties such as, Cosmic Crisp, Pazazz, Wild Twist, Opal, Evercrisp, Envy, and SugarBee.
“We are executing several exciting promotions with several [retailers] tied to First Kiss, Pazazz and Cosmic Crisp,” Roper said. “For Pazazz and Cosmic we are supporting both in-store and digital promotions. At store door, we have in-store sales contests, recipe contests and cross selling into deli departments, as well as sampling programs. Additionally, we have several social media programs in place to targeting Gen X and Z with focus on physical and mental health activities.”
Additionally, Pazazz teamed up with professional women’s hockey player Taylor Heise and Second Harvest Heartland to address hunger issues.
“Every time she gets an assist (apple in hockey lingo) we are donating 600 pounds of apples to our neighbors in need,” Roper said. “There will be opportunities for retailers and consumers to get behind the cause. Paid and earned media along with social presence will provide exposure for Pazazz and SHH on the coattails of a very popular female athlete.”
