PRESS RELEASE

Elgin, Minn. – Honeybear is going for gold at retail. This week the company that pioneered Honeycrisp unveils colorful, distinctive new retail cartons for all Honeycrisp apples shipping under the Honeybear Brands name. The new packaging will begin arriving this fall at North American retailers and has been designed to provide retailers with standout display options in their produce aisles.

“This new design direction is entirely retailer driven in two ways,” says Don Roper, vice president, sales and marketing, Honeybear Brands. “Firstly, we hear all the time from our retail partners that when they open a Honeybear carton, they know they’re getting apples that have been grown, picked and shipped to the highest quality standards. Our legacy and our history have really helped us establish ourselves as the Gold Standard for growers and packers of Honeycrisp apples.

“Secondly, when so many other apple cartons can be generic and dull, we wanted to give produce managers and their in-store display teams an easy and highly impactful way to add color and fun to their produce aisles that will really engage and draw in their customers.”

The new, bright, Honeybear Brands carton is intended as a symbol and ongoing commitment to those gold standard practices in growing and providing the very best Honeycrisp apples possible. It is also a radical departure from the current white and green packaging. Each carton features a bold, golden and attractive background with the Honeybear centered in a sunburst for high customer visibility anywhere in the produce aisle.

“Our goal is quite simply to help give our retail partners a clear advantage over their competition whenever they choose to sell Honeybear apples,” adds Roper.

Honeybear, the Honeycrisp pioneer in Washington State, has more than twenty-five years of experience growing Honeycrisp apples around the world. The new Honeybear Brands carton introduction follows a successful year for Honeybear Brands that saw universal sales increases across the company’s portfolio of premium varieties as well as a doubling in production capabilities in the Midwest and a record sales year for Pazazz, star of Honeybear’s varietal development program.

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About Honeybear Brands (www.honeybearbrands.com) Honeybear is a leading grower and developer of premium apple varieties. The company started as Wescott Agri Products, a family run apple orchard in the early 1970s. From that early start several generations ago, Honeybear still employs the same hands-on, personal attention to apple varieties produced through the Honeybear Apple Varietal Development Program. Honeybear is the leading grower of Honeycrisp in the Northwest and offers complete domestic and global apply supply integration from varietal development to growing, packing, shipping and retailer support.