"To make this a global apple brand we need as many growers as possible"

New Zealand's newest apple variety Dazzle, has been billed as the biggest thing since the Royal Gala. Dazzle is the brand name for the cultivar PremA129, a large, red, sweet apple which has taken Plant & Food Research (PFR) 20 years to develop at their research station in Havelock North.

100,000 trees have been planted in trials in New Zealand where there has been a really good interest, there are also a few plantings in other countries.

"The Dazzle apple will be available to all growers in New Zealand," explains Fruitcraft manager Steve Potbury. "We believe that in order to really make this a global apple brand we need to have as many growers growing it as possible. Limiting it to a few companies would not be the best thing to do. We also want to work with partners around the world to provide a year round supply."

Fruitcraft is a collaboration between Bostock NZ, Mr Apple and FreshMax. The main role for Fruitcraft is to find new fruit varieties which the companies can grow and market themselves. Steve's role is find and evaluate the new varieties, and to work with the companies to bring the new varieties to the marketplace.

Club varieties are the way that the apple industry is going, "Developing a variety and getting it to the market is such a lengthy and expensive process and you need to manage that. New, open varieties will continue to come out, but anything special will have a licence."

"By having the three big companies working together it gives us a bit more clout when trying get the new varieties. The companies collaborate, but are also sometime competitors on the market. It is a remarkably complementary group.

It takes around twenty years to develop a new apple and get it to the marketing stage, longer before you have established volumes on the market. "You need to have your eye on the future when you are developing a new variety and New Zealand, due to its proximity certainly sees the Asian market as the way ahead. These are strong markets which are interested in new products and who will also pay for them. That is what we have been focusing on, varieties which suit those markets. That is what the Dazzle apple is, a big, red, crisp and juicy sweet apple. It will take some time to have commercial volumes on the market but in the meantime we will work on finding good growers and partners around the world to produce this apple.