ST. LOUIS (KMOX) - After years of growing a new breed of apple trees, Eckert's Farm is now ready to stock local grocery store shelves with its new EverCrisp apples. The family farm says it's likely to be its top-selling apple of the future.
Starting Wednesday, you can find the new breed of apples in all Schnucks locations. The new fruit is a mix between the Honeycrisp – currently the most-desired apple – and the Fuji.
Eckert’s, the largest family-owned and operated pick-your-own farm and orchard in the US, is now one of the first farms in the country to source the EverCrisp apples to grocery stores.
“We were one of the few farms to test grow this apple over a decade ago, and now, thanks to our partnership with Schnucks, a larger audience can try the EverCrisp," says Chris Eckert, president and CEO of Eckert’s Farms. "It has been very well received, and we suspect that it will be one of our top selling apples in the future.”
Although the Honeycrisp is so popular, its trees are meant to thrive in the Midwest. So for the last decade, Eckert's and the Midwest Apple Improvement Association (MAIA) have been testing seedlings at farms across states in the region to find that perfect fit.
“In 2010, we tested 5-10 EverCrisp® trees in our orchard, and by 2013, we had planted over 1,000," Eckert says. "We’ve just now been able to produce a yield large enough to warrant distribution beyond our pick-your-own experiences at our farms.”
There are now over a million EverCrisp trees grown throughout the world, but Eckert’s is the largest grower of the apple in the area, and one of the first farms in the country to be able to introduce the EverCrisp apple to the masses.
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