While the commercial world is pushing love and gearing up to pink—hearts, ribbons, cards for St Valentine’s Day—others are pushing something completely different. This week is, in the ways of marketing, Bramley Apple Week.
Now, Bramleys are a British staple with a noble history. But according the website of the Bramley Apple Information Service (of course there’s one) they are exclusive to Britain. How weird. Surely a few people in the States grow them?
But no, it seems that the idea of cooking apples is the USA is virtually non-existent, except to a few growers such as Windrose Farm, CA. So rare are they that British expats get really, really excited when they find them.
It seems to me like a marketing opportunity, but this isn't on the cards for the Bramley Apple Information Service. It’s funded by Bramley apple growers around Britain (they’re mostly in Kent, East Anglia and the West Country). They have marketing committees, run the Brammy awards (for the best Bramley apple products) and run a website with a wide range of information, including some rather nice sounding recipes, savoury as well as sweet. How many producers there are, I can’t tell you, as the contact on the end of the phone declined to say. Apparently they can’t give out information on their growers…
Another surprise was that, for a site that promotes Bramleys, they only include one link to a company that actually sells trees, the recently formed Pomona Fruits. Surely they’re missing a trick here? The more people are exposed to Bramleys, the more they’ll want to eat them.
And are the Americans really so closed-minded to the idea of cooking apples, or do our producers have their reasons for not pushing them in the States? It would be interesting to know.
If you sell Bramley apple trees, I suggest you get in contact and ask to be added to the association’s list of links. And, apples or apple trees, there’s a market waiting for development just across the Pond.
...Landscape Juice Network
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