To hear the buzz, the new SweeTango that went on a sale this week at select grocery stores could eventually dethrone Honeycrisp as the "must have" apple.
But for at least one small Minnesota grower, the SweeTango strikes a sour note.
"I'm David, they're Goliath," quips Karl Townsend, owner of Dassel Hillside Farm in Meeker County. "It's a good apple. It's the business model that's bad."
Townsend objects to an exclusive agreement between the University of Minnesota - the apple's developer - and the state's largest apple producer, Lake City based Pepin Heights.
"Small growers are not allowed fair access to markets with this agreement," he says.
The deal is a departure for the University's apple program. Up until now all its varieties -- including the blockbuster Honeycrisp - have been public releases, meaning all growers can plant and market the apples with only a one-time $1.30 per tree payment to the University.
"It would be nice if we could do that," says Bev Durgan, director of the Minnesota Agricultural Experimentation Station. But Durgan says lessons learned from the University's Honeycrisp experience convinced it to move in a different direction with the SweeTango.
Durban says the public release of the Honeycrisp led to plantings in areas of the country not particularly suited for the apple. She says those trees eventually produced inferior fruit, diminishing the quality and value of the Honeycrisp name.
Perhaps not surprisingly, dollars are playing an important role too. The U of M has reaped about $8.2 million in royalties from the 6.5 million Honeycrisp trees planted worldwide since the apple's release.
The exclusive deal with Pepin Heights has the potential of yielding far greater rewards for the University, through a series of ongoing royalty payments on the sale of trees, the annual use of the trees and the sale of the apples those trees produce.
"The amount of the funding the state and federal government puts into research is declining and if we're unable to generate some of this income through these license agreements, we may not ever have another SweeTango," says Durgan.
The University has entered similar agreement on its wheat, soybeans and grapes, but the first exclusive agreement on apples has rubbed growers like Townsend the wrong way.
"The purpose of the University and the purpose of the research station is to develop horticultural products for all of Minnesota, not just one business," he says.
For its part, Pepin Heights insists the arrangement will benefit Minnesota growers by maintaining the quality standards needed for a strong brand.
"The whole notion with SweeTango is we're going to put enough constraints on this thing that we can maintain quality," says Dennis Courtier, owner of Pepin Heights.
Courtier says Pepin Heights has assembled a cooperative of 45 growers from across the northern US and Canada to grow the apple. Just three of those growers are from Minnesota, a state that counts roughly 200 commercial orchards.
Under the licensing agreement, independent growers like Townsend are still allowed to plant SweeTango, but only up to 1000 trees, which Townsend says may be enough to sell at roadside stands but not to supply a wholesale market that can make or break a grower.
Nor are independent growers allowed to pool their SweeTango apples with those of other small growers to reach the critical mass needed to market to grocery chains. Townsend believes the restrictions could cost small growers sales of their other apples too, driving some of them out of business.
"When you go to the grocery chain they want the exciting apple. It you don't have it, they go to the grower that has it," he says.
The fact that so much is being made of SweeTango may be the strongest indication yet that the U of M has another hit apple on its hands.
"We are hoping this will be a very successful apple," says Durgan.
For growers success may be determined according to who has the SweeTango, and who doesn't.
(Copyright 2009 by KARE. All Rights Reserved.)
