Optimal growing conditions and new varieties position South Africa as world leader in blushed pear category
South Africa is expecting a vintage blushed pear season, with growing conditions contributing to excellent colour and taste.
The first blushed pears were harvested before Christmas and arrivals in Europe and the UK will be in the market from this week.
Calla du Toit, head of procurement at Tru-Cape Fruit Marketing and chairman of Hortgro Pome Fruit, said this is ”undoubtedly” the best blushed pear season the country has ever seen.
“We are making good progress in developing our whole range of blushed pears and South Africa is now a world market leader in this category,” he noted.
Du Toit pointed out that, with better Rosemary strains coming on stream, it showed that the South African industry is working across the whole range of blushed pears to improve its offer.
“We are particularly pleased with the new variety Cape Blush, which has exceptional colour and eating quality and which is a truly South African bred variety,” he continued.
“Several of the new blushed pear varieties have emerged from the exceptional red gene pool developed by Agricultural Research Council breeder Taaibos Human.
“Cape Blush, which is the trademark for Rosy-Lwazi, is one of these varieties,” du Toit confirmed.
”After being identified as a promising variety sixteen years ago, the first Cape Blush pears were harvested in 2021 near Ceres.”
Tru-Cape Marketing will feature this variety strongly in future, but Du Toit emphasised that the whole blushed range is important to develop a successful campaign for the category.
“Additional to Cape Blush, we have Rosemary, Celina – which is also known as Cuty – Cape Blush, Flamingo, Ceeky and Forelle.”
The South African blushed pear category is in a ”dynamic phase”, he said, and is sustained by efforts to always breed better varieties, with better taste and colour.
South African sources have said that they also see a bright future for South African blushed pears in the East, where taste and colour will always be most important.
However, statistics show that Europe and the UK still dominate sales of South African pears.
