Those not familiar with donut peaches – it could be because either you’ve never seen one, or that they got glossed over for a basket of traditional peaches. Their season is extremely short – one week out of the traditional July to September season. Jack Romagnoli finished picking his near the end of August and has finished selling the BuenOs variety but still has the TangOs variety left to sell. “I started growing them nearly four years ago,” he said. "Their taste profile is very similar to a Baby Gold peach. They’re firm textured and they’re very sweet". Romagnoli was one of the first in the area to grow them.
Romagnoli doesn’t’ grow a large supply because it’s an item that hasn’t taken off in a huge way (yet). It’s very niche. “I heard about flat peaches and not everyone planted them. I thought it would be a novelty item and that’s exactly what it is. They’re very tasty,” he said. They're visually interesting and brightly coloured but are lots of work. “It requires all my energy and time in order to sell them because people look at them and say ‘What is that?’ They don’t want to buy it,” said Romagnoli. “They’re familiar with a regular peach so the first thing they have to do is try one. If they try them they like them.”
Romagnoli charges $5/quart of flat peaches, which are much harder to grow than traditional peaches. “They tend to have a lot more disease pressure so you don’t get as much fruit off the trees and therefore you don’t get as many in the basket.” Romagnoli says they’re harder to keep clean and in a marketable fashion, because of their odd shape water tends to sit on them, which can encourage mould and brown rot.
Only a select few other Niagara region growers have flat peaches in their orchards and only one of Romagnoli’s co-op colleagues sells to any retail chains – the rest of them rely on markets and roadside stands. “That just shows you how small a portion of the business it is. If we all planted them, we’d have too many in one year,” said Romagnoli. “TangOs and BuenOs are only one week of the season.” If you can get your hands on one – eat it right away and you’ll be hooked.
For more information:
Jack Romagnoli
Romagnoli Farms
Ph: (905) 563-8614
