A year-round range of Disney-branded fresh produce is launched this week. From November 5, the apples, bananas and easy-peeler citrus fruit aimed at children will be available in Waitrose's 136 stores across the UK.

The brand has arisen from a new exclusive licensing agreement for fresh fruit between Disney and RED Communications. It is the first time that the world animation giant has given its name to a full range of fresh produce.

The Fun Fruit range features individually stickered fruits in packs branded with Disney's Winnie The Pooh and friends. Every pack will be sold with free gifts for children, such as collectable stickers, pencil tops and hologram cards, and will be supported in store by colourful point-of-sale material. Different designs will also feature in the future.

The apple pack and citrus pack, each of 800g, will retail at £1.29p and £1.49p respectively. The banana pack, consisting of five fingers, will sell for 99p.

Interesting educational facts about the fruit will be included in the packs, alongside slogans such as Tigger's Bananas Make You Bounce.

A spokesperson for Waitrose said he expected overall fruit sales to increase as a result of the launch and that children would persuade their parents to buy the branded fruit. The supermarket said its recent research showed parents believed the approach would make their children eat more fruit.

Steven Esom, Waitrose's director of buying, said: 'This is a fun, eye-catching way of encouraging children to eat fruit. If they start at an early age, hopefully it will develop into a lifetime's healthy habit.' Waitrose is using its existing suppliers, Worldwide Fruit for apples, SH Pratt for bananas and Poupart for citrus, for the launch. If the project is a success it plans to extend the brand to other fruit lines, with grapes as the next target.

The supermarket said that the brand was good news for suppliers as it offered a much-sought after outlet for smaller fruit, ideally suited to children. Small bananas are being used, apples are in the 60-65mm range, and easy peelers are in the 4 and large 5 calibre.

The supermarket said that although its fruit is already selected for best eating quality, the produce used would be 'as good as it possibly can be'. He added that the brand would be taken off the shelves at any time of the year if ample supplies of the right standard could not be sourced.

The supermarket has exclusive rights to the branded range for six months, after which it will be available to all retailers. Disney said it is 'always looking for innovative ways' to develop its brand.

Meanwhile, it became clear this week that Agrexco Carmel is no longer using the Jaffa brand on its citrus lines. Instead, Israel's largest horticultural exporter will be using its Carmel logo on its grapefruit range, including on the green Sweetie.

For the full story, see feature on Israeli citrus.

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