Stemilt Growers is offering a pair of promising promotions to help retailers sell apples and pears during the winter selling season. The “What a Pear” promotion is new this year, while “Crunch before Lunch” has received a design overhaul since its original January ’08 launch by the Wenatchee, Wash.-based tree fruit grower/packer/shipper.

“The pear category has untapped potential — there are plenty of opportunities to reach new customers,” said Stemilt marketing director Roger Pepperl. “This promotion entices shoppers to purchase pears by giving them a new way to incorporate the fruit into their diets.”

For the What a Pear promotion, which teams a classic pear variety with a complementary cheese, Stemilt has created four 11-inch-by-7-inch POS cards, each featuring a different pear-and-cheese combination. The four pairings are Red Anjou with Brie, Bartlett with Gouda, Anjou with Goat, and Bosc with White Aged Cheddar. Pepperl recommends retailers feature a different pairing each month throughout the late fall and winter selling season to maintain consumer interest and drive category sales.

To highlight the effort, Stemilt -- an early adopter of a ripening program – is emphasizing its conditioned-pear program, which is trademarked as RipeRite. “Consumers shouldn’t have to wait for pears to ripen at home,” noted Pepperl. “In fact, ripened pears enhance the eating experience, which increases consumer satisfaction. Furthermore, data shows that carrying conditioned pears can increase sales by 16 percent.”

As for apples, Stemilt is reintroducing its popular “Crunch before Lunch” promotion, which is based on 2007 research findings from Penn State University that found people who ate a whole apple 15 minutes before lunch could consume fewer calories overall.

During the five-week study, researchers looked at how calorie consumption fluctuated as a group of normal-weight adults snacked on different apple products, including juice, sauce and whole apples just before eating lunch. Another group of participants didn’t receive a snack before lunch. On average, the participants who ate a whole apple before lunch consumed nearly 190 calories fewer than those who snacked on something else, or didn’t snack at all. Researchers attribute the act of eating a solid, high-fiber food as the reason those who ate a whole apple filled up on fewer calories.

The newly designed Crunch before Lunch promotion highlights a few of the health attributes that consumers can obtain from eating apples. The signage (11-inch-by-7-inch POS cards and 22-inch-by-28-inch posters) has a similar color scheme as the What a Pear promotion and other pieces from Stemilt’s fall merchandising collection, so that retailers can easily integrate the materials into several promotions this year.

“The What a Pear and Crunch before Lunch promotions are great for retailers because they fit with multiple varieties, including conventional or organic,” observed Pepperl. “Crunch before Lunch brings attention to health and nutrition, a popular topic among Americans today, while the pear promotion appeals to the curious consumer by providing them with a unique snack tip that is fun and easy to recall.”

For more information, visit http://stemilt.com.