This document discusses reasons why new apple varieties succeed or fail in the market. It identifies three main reasons for failure: 1) poor field or post-harvest performance, 2) marketing issues, and 3) lack of consumer acceptance. For varieties to succeed, they need to perform well in the orchard and throughout the supply chain, appeal to target consumer segments, and be effectively marketed. The document also examines ways to improve the variety development process, such as designing breeding programs to select varieties suited for multiple production regions and leveraging genomics tools to better predict variety performance.

1. Why do new varieties (apple) fail or succeed ?
J. Bonany, IRTA

2. Varieties are in the core of the fruit bussiness
RETAIL
POST-
HARVEST
ORCHARD
VARIETY

3. The “ideal” variety
Friendly to the
grower
•Productive
•Well adapted to the area
of production
•Good fruit quality (pack-
out)
Friendly to the
value chain
(warehouse,
wholesaler, retailer
•Good storage
•Long shelf life
•High rotation
Friendly to the
consumer:
•Flavour
•Food safety
•Health
•Convenient
•Price

4. Of course not a single cause for failure
 #1 Poor field or chain performance:
 Pre-harvest problems
 Post-harvest problems
 Poor technical accompaniment
 #2 Marketing issues
 #3 Consumer acceptance
 Insufficient taste/flavour/texture quality
 Innapropiate consumer segment target
Page  4

5. # 1 Poor field and chain performance
 Field performance
 Productivity, internal and external fruit quality,
tree habit, …
 Root of the problem: selection in different
environment of final production site
 South:
 Sunburn
 Pre-harvest drop
 Poor colour development
 Fruit finish (russeting, cracking, scarf skin)
 Pest and disesases
 Powdery mildew
 Codling moth
 Northern production areas
 Cold hardiness
 Fruit size
 Pest and diseases
 Canker
Page  5
Photo: Ontario, Ministry of Industrial and Rural Affaires

6. #1 Poor field and chain performance
 Postharvest performance
 Scald
 Bitter pit
 Bruising
 Lenticelosis
 Internal browning
 Other postharvest disorders
 Some of the problems discovered only
after initial years of large scale production
Page  6

7. #1 Poor field and chain performance
 Lack of technical guidance
 Some of the problems can be managed
 Need for a technical accompaniment by
breeder or developer of the variety
 On site trials
 Changes with managed varieties
Page  7

8. #2 Marketing issues
Page  8
GALA RED DELICIOUS GOLDEN FUJI GRANNY PINK LADY
APPLE VARIETIES or APPLE CATEGORIES

9. #2 Marketing issues
Page  9
ROYAL GALA
BROOKFIELD
VENUS

10. #2 Marketing issues
GOLDEN SMOOTHEE® REINDERS CRIELAARD ®

11. #2 Marketing issues
 Quite rigid categories in the supermarket shelves
 Industry succesful in changing within the apple categories
 Clonal selection (ie GALAXY by BROOKFIELD)
 Not so succesful in introducing new categories
 In spite of >70 apple breeding programs
 Improvement within the category beyond clonal selection almost nil
 Breeding gains not moved rapidly enough into production

12. #2 Marketing issues
 Development of new variety (category) is very costly
 Promotional costs
 Quality assurance systems associated also are capital demanding
 Need for an scheme to secure investment
 Club or managed varieties
 Uniqueness (from the consumer perspective)
 In the search for a variety that is so unique that creates a category by itself
 However, until now uniqueness has been based either
 Flavour
 Appearance: skin color
 Flesh color
Page  12

13. #3 Consumer acceptance
VARIETY SSC (ºBrix) ACIDITY (g/L) FIRMNESS (Kg)
GOLDEN 14,2 4,7 6,7
ROYAL GALA 13,1 3,2 7,5
STANDARD
VARIETIES
RED DELICIOUS 13,3 2,5 6,6
FUJI 15,6 3,7 7,0
GRANNY SMITH 12,1 8,7 7,8
AVERAGE 13,6 4,6 7,1
RUBENS 14,5 5,6 6,9
KANZI 14,7 7,0 7,5
NEW VARIETIES JAZZ 14,8 5,7 9,1
PACIFIC QUEEN 17,0 3,4 8,8
PINK LADY 15,8 5,8 8,1
AVERAGE 15,4 5,7 8,1

14. #3 Consumer acceptance
 Consumer segmentation
 Not all consumers like the same
 Need to target each variety to each target group
 Are target groups based on age, gender, country ?

15. ARI
FUJ
JON
WEL
RUB
GD
GC
JUN
LIG
KAN
PL
(+) C1
C2
C3
C4
C5
C6
-3
-2
-1
0
1
2
3
-3 -2 -1 0 1 2 3
A2
A1
Preference Map (A1, A2)
#3 Consumer acceptance (preference map)
Page  15
F/Sweetness (+)
SSC (+)
Acidty (+)
Sourness(+)
Firmness (+)

16. ARI
FUJ
JON
WEL
RUB
GD
GC
JUN
LIG
KAN
PL
(+) C1
C2
C3
C4
C5
C6
-3
-2
-1
0
1
2
3
-3 -2 -1 0 1 2 3
A3
A1
Preference Map (A1, A3)
# Consumer acceptance (preference map)
Page  16
T/Juiciness (+)
T/Mealiness(-)
T/Crispness (+)
Acidity (+)
Sourness(+)
Firmness(+)

17. SUMMARY OF CONSUMER SEGMENTS
POPULATION
MEGA
GROUP A
68%
+ Sweetness
- Sourness
>14,4 ºBrix
<3,6 g/L
C6
6%
+Sweetness
>15 º Brix
< 6 g/L
C1
21%
C2
38%
C5
3%
MEGA
GROUP B
32 %
+ Sourness
+ Crispness
>7,0 g/L
C3
10%
+Sourness
+ Crispness
>7,8 g/L
C4
22 %
GOLDCHIEF 8.0
RUBENS 7.9
FUJI 7.9
PINK LADY 7.8
GOLDEN D. 7.8
FUJI 7.7
GOLDEN D. 7.1
GOLDCHIEF 6.5
PINK LADY 6.4
RUBENS 6.2
GOLDCHIEF 7.0
FUJI 6.8
PINK LADY 6.7
RUBENS 6.6
GOLDEN D. 6.5
GOLDCHIEF 5.3
FUJI 5.1
PINK LADY 4.9
RUBENS 4.8
GOLDEN D. 4.7
KANZI 6.7
ARIANE 6.1
JUNAMI 5.9
RUBENS 5.7
GOLDCHIEF 5.7
KANZI 7.8
ARIANE 7.4
JUNAMI 7.4
RUBENS 7.0
LIGOL 7.0

18. Focus on field and postharvest performance
Field and
postharvest
performance
Consumer
acceptance
Marketing
Page  18

19. Avoiding failures
 Need for a more efficient system
 Breeding varieties
 Evaluation varieties

20. Breeding programs around the world (+70)
P&F
R
WA
JAPA
N
SUD
AFIRCA
NFRUITEC
BRASIL
EPAGRI
EEUU
UCEEUU
WSU
EEUU
UM
EUROPE
>30
RUSSIA
CHINA
EEUU
PRI
JONAGOLDHONEY CRISP
FUJI
PINK LADY
ROYAL GALA JAZZ
ARIANE
RUBENS MODI
KANZI
PINOVA
DIWA

21. Page  21
Variety testing

22. Could we do it differently ?
 Should we design the breeding programs in a different way ?
 Select once and test in multiple sites versus
 Select in multiple sites at once
 Could we predict the performance of a variety in a certain region ?
 Could we do the testing of varieties in a different way ?
 Now is very similar to the ‘spray and pray’
 Can the genomics tools be of any use in this prediction ?
Page  22

23. Page  23
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