By Dawn Schuett

Post-Bulletin, Rochester MN 

ELGIN -- By now, many Minnesotans have picked apples at an orchard and savored a sweet Honeycrisp or a tart Haralson.

Pick-your-own orchards are a great way to enjoy the local crop in season, but commercial apple growers in the region have worked together to establish a year-round market for their fruit.

A leading packer and distributor of the regional apple crop is Wescott Agri Products Inc. in Elgin. Fred Wescott is president of the company that evolved from an apple orchard founded in the 1970s.

Wescott is part of the Mississippi Valley Fruit Co., a consortium of some growers in southeast Minnesota, west central Wisconsin and northeast Iowa. Through the consortium, fresh apples grown commercially in the region are packed at the Wescott facilities and delivered directly to stores and warehouses in the upper Midwest.

Wescott is also involved in the Apple Crisp Cooperative, which a handful of growers started in the 1990s to process regional varieties such as Haralson and Regent for use by bakeries and the food service industry. Apples that don't meet the quality standards for fresh consumption are sliced for pies or pressed into cider.

The cooperative will process about 600,000 pounds for sliced product and two million pounds for cider this year.

The Minnesota apple industry is not in a position to compete with "powerhouses" like the states of Washington or New York when it comes to production, Wescott said, so growers focus on varieties unique to the growing conditions of the Upper Mississippi Region.

In 2008, Minnesota's utilized apple production was estimated at 24.3 million pounds with a value of $17.8 million. By comparison, the state of Washington produced 6.1 billion pounds last year. Overall, the United States had a utilized apple production of about 9.94 billion pounds in 2008.

More than 15 varieties are grown in the upper Mississippi Valley area with Zestar, Honeycrisp, Cortland, McIntosh, Haralson, Regent and Fireside among the most well known. A number of new varieties, developed in local, private breeding programs, are also going into production.

With growers working collaboratively to produce and market their fruit under the label of the Mississippi Valley Fruit Co., Wescott said, "we can succeed in an industry of giants" by supplying upper Midwest retailers with high quality varieties of distinction that are "born, raised and consumed" here.

Dawn Schuett is a Farmington freelance writer.

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