7.1.1 Product development for a new apple

The area for product development was first identified and then the possible parents chosen. In the next generation, there were many variations, screened on technical analysis of:

     product qualities such as sensory characteristics, nutritional value,
        composition, use, safety;

     production qualities such as production difficulties/ease, disease
        resistance, yields;

     handling qualities such as deterioration after harvesting and on storage.

The cultivars in the first generation were screened, and the most suitable for further development chosen for growing in the next season. This further generation grown in the next season was again screened. This time, not only was there technical screening but also the production and marketing experts selected for suitability for production and marketing. This growing and screening took several generations and significant time, in the order of years.

On reduction to a few selections, the qualities were related to the market conditions at that time. While senior people in the company made the final selections, they were assisted and guided by consumers and distribution/retail customers who evaluated the new fresh products. Production was started, multiplied with commercial growers/farmers and then the first crop test marketed on a small scale.

Creating a new and successful horticultural variety is a long search through genetic possibility, inheritance, disease resistance, keeping quality, followed by the trade-offs of one attribute with another; and so all of these aspects had to be gone through. This went on over many generations of seedlings which, after the final selection was narrowed right down, has then to grow to trees and bear and proliferate. So the exercise was very much one of seeking to establish just what it is that the target consumers ask from their ideal apple, and then trying to match this against what nature, aided by the skill of the plant breeder, will allow.

All this took 15 years or so, making it an especially long-term undertaking. It is also an expensive one in that beyond the visible costs is the inevitability that money risked and spent now can receive no return for all those years. As a project this injects its own special features, while at the same time all the standard routines are still just as necessary as in any other development of a new product.

New Zealand for many years had a 'single desk' exporter and marketer of bulk apples working cooperatively for all of the apple growers. The Horticulture and Food Research Institute of New Zealand Ltd (Box 7.1) carried out its variety development and licensed ENZA as a company to market its varieties.

Box 7.1 Horticulture and Food Research Institute (HortResearch) HortResearch is extensively involved in developing new plant varieties. We have expert breeding capability in a range of fruiting, ornamental, and agro-forestry crops. Our plant breeders work with industry in order to develop new varieties and rootstocks to provide cultural or market advantages for growers. These activities are backed by extensive in-house scientific capability in sensory science, genetics and plant physiology to assist in making selections to suit the environments, end uses and tastes of different cultural groups both within New Zealand and around the world. The fruit breeding programmes aim for variety, flavour, texture, storage life, appearance, productivity, pest and disease resistance and climatic adaptation. HortResearch is a world leader in apple cultivar development. Examples of our success are the Pacific apple series ('Pacific Rose', 'Pacific Beauty', and 'Pacific Queen') marketed by ENZAFRUIT. This new variety development is also well supported by technical back up in orchard production, integrated pest management, postharvest handling and associated capabilities within HortResearch. Source: Adapted from a publicity letter from Dr Ian Warrington, CEO, HortResearch.

The stages and approximate timing of the development of Pacific Rose are shown in Table 7.1. This indicates the very extended time scale, arising from the intervals necessary for the seedlings of each successive generation to grow so that their fruit can be evaluated.


Table 7.1 Timetable for the development of Pacific Rose apples

1st cycle (product strategy)   Discussion from ‘Pacific’ markets of need for blush apples   6 months Grown in glasshouses 20,000 seedlings   Expert selection   18 months Grown in open ground Selected on resistance to ‘blackspot’ and ‘ powdery mildew’ 8000 seedlings 2nd cycle (product design and process development)   Grown in fruit selection orchards 5000 seedlings 4 years Selected on fruit characteristics Grown on two sites 100–200 seedlings 2 years Selected by plant breeders, pomologists, on fruit and growing characteristics Judged for market suitability 10 seedlings 3rd cycle (product commercialisation and product launch)     1 variety selected 2 years Growing expanded   1993 Seedlings distributed to growers 1000 cartons 1994 Pomology developed, storage trials 5000 cartons 1995 Multiplied by commercial breeders/growers 22,000 cartons 1996 Commercial production 104,000 cartons

Plant breeders normally talk about development cycles and these have been arbitrarily related to the PD Process. Because of the nature of developing apples there is not an exact date for launch, but the market is expanded in a rolling launch as the fruit becomes available.