Issue link: http://read.dmtmag.com/i/34759
Pear assessments drop With pear shippers handling more domestic promotions, the Pear Bureau will focus on exports. by Geraldine Warner P ear growers in the Pacific North- west will pay less money to the Pear Bureau Northwest for winter pear promotions in the coming season. The Pear Bureau’s board of directors has reduced its assessment rate for winter pear promotions from 44 to 41 cents per box, reflecting the trend for producers and marketers to conduct their own private promotions with customers. The promo- tional assessment on Bartlett and other early maturing varieties remains 30 cents per box. The lower assessment rate will mean a drop in income for the Pear Bureau of $450,000 for the year and a 7 percent reduction in its budget, based on an esti- mated winter pear crop of 15.5 million boxes, said Pear Bureau President Kevin Moffitt. That will mean fewer generic retail promotions on the domestic market. Moffitt said as the industry has consol- idated and packers become bigger, there’s been a trend for many shippers and mar- keters to do their own retail promotions with their customers and hire their own field staff. Today, the ten largest pear sales desks control 90 percent of the crop. There will be an effort to coordinate the Pear Bureau’s generic promotions with shippers, Moffitt said. While shipper representatives talk to retailers about the whole range of produce items they sell— usually apples and cherries as well as pears—the Pear Bureau focuses exclusively on pears year round. The Pear Bureau has five regional man- agers (down from 11 a decade ago), who work with retailers across the country and will share information about the promo- tions they set up with retailers with the retailers’ suppliers. The new promotion rate was set during the Pear Bureau’s annual meeting in Portland, Oregon, in early June. Not low enough Board member Rob Stewart, general manager of Stadelman Fruit Company, Zillah, Washington, argued that a three- cent reduction in the assessment rate was not enough. “I would make a recommen- dation to cut it from 41 to 35 cents. That’s a very adequate amount of money for what we’re doing domestically,” he said. But Craig Christensen of Wenatchee, Washington, said the Wenatchee district produces about 50 percent of the North- west’s fresh winter pears, and growers there wanted to fully fund the Pear Bureau www.goodfruit.com GOOD FRUIT GROWER JULY 2011 9 to maintain the strongest promotions possible in order to move the crop. “As a grower, I am going to vote for not reduc- ing the assessment rate.” The board went with the 41-cent-a-box recommendation of a task force that the Pear Bureau had set up to look at the issue. “It’s a good compromise, and it meets everyone’s needs,” said task force member Mike Taylor of Wenatchee. “We’re trying to be prudent and save money where possible and still have a well- funded program.” The bureau’s emphasis from now on will be the export market and consumer promotions. The export budget is $5.2 million dollars, of which almost $3 million came from the federal Market Access Promotion program. About $3.5 million will be spent on domestic promotions and communications for winter pears and $1 million for Bartlett and other summer/fall pear promotions. The Fresh Pear Committee, which administers the federal marketing order for fresh Northwest pears, collects addi- tional assessments. For winter pears,