Sep 9, 2021

Arctic apple marketers report successful ‘tasting event’

Summerland, British Columbia-based Okanagan Specialty Fruits, developer and grower behind the Arctic apple varieties, recently launched a sampling event in the San Francisco Bay area with huge success. Over 12,000 Arctic apple samples were handed out during a three-day period at various events throughout the city.

“We chose San Francisco as a target market to create awareness about the new availability of Arctic apple products in the area via Amazon Fresh,” Rebecca Catlett, director of marketing and communications for Okanagan Specialty Fruits (OSF). “The Arctic apple street teams were able to engage with over 13,000 people during the event and people were able to try both our sweet Arctic Golden slices and our tart Arctic Granny slices.”

QR codes were distributed with the product where samplers had the opportunity to complete a short survey an enter a contest to win a $2,500 Visa gift card, resulting in over 6,300 QR code scans. Survey results indicated a rating of 4.7 out of 5 for how much respondents liked Arctic Apples. 

“Atop the hill of Alamo Square, these beautiful crisp, green apples were handed to us by a wonderful ambassador,” said Jeff Morris, who was visiting from San Diego and was selected as the winner of the survey contest. “The perfect amount of tartness, the perfect amount of sweetness, and the perfect amount of crunch were the only way to describe these apples.”

Morris has a birthday coming up soon and may use his prize to plan a fun vacation to celebrate.

“We always find that the best way for people to discover the freshly-picked taste of Arctic apples is to experience the difference firsthand,” said Neal Carter, president of OSF. “These sampling events are a great way to do just that. Given the success of this one, we will definitely be exploring opportunities to do more in the future.”

Besides the San Francisco Bay area, Artctic apples are also available in other select markets of Amazon Fresh, including San Diego, Sacramento, Los Angeles and Phoenix.

OSF is a vertically integrated company specializing in the development, growing, processing, and marketing of novel tree fruit varieties developed through bioengineering. OSF was founded in 1996 and acquired by an affiliate of Third Security LLC in 2020. OSF’s flagship product is its Arctic apple varieties.