03/04/05 Moving the final pears

Although there is only one pear growing season in the Northwest, there are three seasons to market and sell the annual crop. According to Pear Bureau Northwest's Kevin Moffitt, the first marketing season is the initially pack in the fall, the second comes during the peak holiday season. But now with about thirty per cent of 2004's winter pear crop left to sell and heavily increasing competition from imported Bartletts starting last month and continuing through June, Pear Bureau is right in the middle of its final marketing push. So what is being done from a promotion standpoint? MOFFITT: We're kind of gearing around some of the holidays in this February, March, April period in the shorter  medium term here. So as Moffitt explains, for example, Pear Bureau Northwest just concluded a Valentine's Day promotion featuring red pear varieties & just in time to start up yet another sales pitch. MOFFITT: We've got a lot of green pear promotions sort of tied in to St. Patrick's Day coming up this month. And then with the Easter holidays, we've got some definite promotions with that as that's also a good food holiday. You're trying to take advantage that they are eating something at home, and they are buying a lot of good pears and vegetables and that sort of thing. And there are non-seasonal promotions as well, such as incorporating pears with various salads to encourage healthy diet and weight loss from the annual gaining of the pounds during the winter.