The 2016 pear crop for the Northwest is expected to reach just under 18.9 million boxes, with most of that production coming from Green Anjou, Green Bartlett and Bosc varieties. If estimates hold, the 2016 crop would then best the 2015 crop by about 500,000 boxes, with most of the gains coming from bigger summer and fall production.
“The variety mix has been very constant for the past 15 to 20 years,” said Jeff Correa from Pear Bureau Northwest. “Because of the seven to 11 years it takes for a pear tree to become full bearing, growers tend to stick to those varieties they know have a market and ones they trust to get them a good return per acre during harvest.” Given that, he added that the Red Anjou has gained popularity over the last several years. That variety, along with the Starkrimson, have found success in China.
“China is the industry’s largest Red pear export market, followed by Taiwan,” explained Correa. “Red colored fruits are particularly auspicious in Chinese culture, especially during the gift giving season.” That's partly why China is potentially on track to become the third-largest export market, behind Canada and Mexico, for U.S. pears within the next 4-5 seasons.
Pear promotion in China
American shippers have had access to the Chinese market for less than four years, and, in that time, China has become the sixth most popular destination for U.S. pears. The challenge, so far, has been that Chinese consumers are not terribly familiar with the look of Western pears, thus shippers must work with local retailers to educate consumers about what kind of fruit to look for, when it's best to eat and how to incorporate Western pears into local cuisine.
Hong Kong and Taiwan are also welcoming destinations, both being mature markets with defined windows during which retailers stock U.S. pears for consumers.
Pear promotion in India
India, on the other hand, is familiar with Western fruit, and they embrace American pears, especially the Green Bartlett variety. The obstacles to growing the market there, Correa explained, have been high tariff rates, a fragmented cold chain and limited uptake of U.S. pears in the southern part of the country.
About 40 percent of each pear crop is exported, and Mexico takes about 50 percent of that volume every year. While Mexico will remain a very important market for years to come because of the large volume and wide quality of fruit it imports, Correa pointed to expansion of new markets as something the industry is striving toward. The UAE, for example, has become the third-largest export market, and Saudi Arabia just had one of the best seasons, as far as importing U.S. pears, that it has had in over 10 years.
“Consumers in the Middle East are becoming more familiar with a greater range of USA pear varieties – with green and red Anjous being the most commonly imported varieties in the market,” said Correa. “The Middle East has been one of our better performing regions in the past four to five seasons. In those years, there's been an uptick in direct USA pear exports to some of the regional markets, like Jordan, Kuwait and Bahrain.”
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