This year turned out to be a breakout season for SweeTango.
Growers tripled the crop. Retailers distributed SweeTango to stores in cities across the nation. And, most importantly, the legion of SweeTango fans grew by leaps and bounds.
The SweeTango success left growers, retailers and apple lovers eagerly awaiting next year’s season.
“If it’s a representative democracy on Facebook, then SweeTango definitely lived up to its name and reputation,” said Tim Byrne, president of Next Big Thing, the growers cooperative that markets the apple. “People have voted with their posts and the overwhelming response was, ‘You’ve got a great fruit here.’”
The success of any apple season starts long before fruit starts ripening on the trees. This year’s bountiful crop stemmed from good planning in prior years, committed growers and a bit of luck with the weather.
Growers in the SweeTango cooperative avoided major problems with weather or storms. The Pacific Northwest experienced cooler than usual weather, which pushed back the SweeTango harvest by a week to 10 days.
“The West Coast is usually seven to 10 days ahead of everyone else,” Byrne said. “But this year we all began to harvest fruit at the same time.”
The quirk of nature actually helped make this year’s first-ever national distribution of SweeTango run smoothly, Byrne said.
“With the fruit arriving it the same time, that makes it easier to tell consumers about the product,” he said.
Once SweeTangos started hitting stores, apple lovers helped spread the word. The SweeTango page on Facebook filled up with posts such as this one:
“Just discovered these a few weeks ago … my new favorite, the best tasting apple ever!!!! Leaves all the others in the dust.”
Fans are definitely wanting more. One SweeTango lover posted, “I miss SweeTango in Ohio! The season needs to be longer!!!”
While the nature of SweeTango growing means the fruit will remain a seasonal product, fans can look forward to increasingly availability next year. Byrne said growers are expected to produce twice as many SweeTango apples next year.
So thanks to the growers, retailers and, most of all, the SweeTango fans for a great season. Be sure to “like” SweeTango on Facebook and follow us on Twitter to keep up with us during the off season and to get the latest news about the progress of your favorite apple.
I also came across these apples by accident. My daughter loves Honeycrisp apples and couldn’t find them where she lives in Florida, so we took some down to her from South Carolina. While in Florida, I thought I would check for the Honeycrisp for her and came across the Cortland SweeTango! I only got it because her name is Cortney and I call her Cort sometimes and thought it neat the name of the apple being Cortland! I told her to try the apple and she loved it, we tried it also and I felt it was the best apple I had ever eaten, and found some when I got back to South Carolina, but that was the only time I could find them. After that noone had them, total dissappointment! Would love to have more, it is hard to wait til next year! But thanks for a wonderful apple, love the SweeTango! Sue Rauch
Thanks, Sue! We’ll be back before you know it.
We bought some Sweetango at a Hyvee store in Watertown SD Nov. 15. They looked like poorly colored red delicious, but they had the sweetango sticker and the stem russeting like Zestar and Honeycrisp. They were the first I had seen. I and my family love Zestar and Honeycrisp and with all the hype wanted to know if Sweetango was really as good as or better. We gathered the family to try and compare it to our favourites, and the verdict is this; Sweetango sucks! They tasted like unripe, over stored, stale red delicious. Add to that overpriced. So much for your doing this for higher quality. You are ripping off the public
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