Harvest Report | Fruit from Our Orchards

FEATURED FRUIT: Royal Riviera^® Pears

Harvest season has come and gone, and it is finally time to indulge in the fruits of our labor! With exceptional buttery texture and the perfect juicy flavor, Royal Riviera® Pears are an autumn jewel to be treasured. In order to ensure top-tier taste, the pears are held in cooling facilities for a minimum of 30 days, allowing their sweetness to fully develop. With the process complete, our legendary Royal Riviera® Pears are ready to ship and will arrive in your hands ready to eat.

NOW HAPPENING IN THE ORCHARDS

As the days become cooler in the Rogue Valley and leaves change color and fall, our peach and pear trees are almost ready for winter dormancy. Our orchard teams are busy making sure thousands of acres of trees have all the pre-dormancy nutrition that they need to ensure a great blossom next spring.

Harvest Information

APPLES

November is a bountiful month for apples, and this month we are shipping crisp and juicy Smitten, Braeburn, and Lady Alice apples grown in Washington and Empire apples grown in New York.

CITRUS

North American citrus will begin shipping in mid-November, just in time for Thanksgiving delivery. We will ship tasty Navel oranges that were grown in Florida, California, and Arizona. We will also ship sweet and tart red grapefruit from Florida’s Indian River Valley as well as Rio Red grapefruit from Texas.

SPECIALTY FRUIT

Fall is a season to celebrate with rich, colorful fruits. This month we will ship beautiful California-grown pomegranates and persimmons.

Orchard Facts

How do your orchardists ensure your pears are all ripe when they arrive, even when the weather is different from year to year?

Because pears require cold weather to become sweet, our orchardists pick each pear the moment it ripens, after which we place them in cold storage for up to 30 days. This ensures that every pear in your box will arrive within a day or two of being ready to eat.
How do you get great pears all year round?

We work with growers in multiple parts of the world to ensure that we have access to the right climate to grow top-quality Comice pears all year. Our orchardists fly out to Chile and New Zealand to inspect the pears we select, and we fly orchardists from those countries here to train them so they can provide pears that meet our standards.
When does your pear crop ripen?

Depending on the year, our pears can ripen anywhere from the second week of August to mid-September. The cooler the growing season is, the faster our pears ripen.
When does your peach crop ripen?

Our peaches ripen from the beginning of July into August while the weather’s warm. Unlike pears, peaches ripen faster in warm weather. If we get a cooler fall season, this means the peach crop and pear harvest will sometimes run together.
How do you make sure the best fruit gets into your gifts?

Every peach and pear (the two fruits we grow in our own orchards) is picked by hand sorted in the field. We then use a machine to take 17 pictures and sort them again to weed out imperfections, and finally, before packing, each piece of fruit is looked at one more time, by hand, to ensure only the highest-quality fruit is shipped.
How much fruit do you grow each year?

We grow about 400 tons of Oregold® Peaches, 15,500 tons of Royal Riviera® Pears, and 800 tons of Bosc pears. The total harvest varies based on weather conditions throughout the year.
Where do you grow your apples?

The majority of the apples we sell come from quality growers in Washington, since Washington apples are high quality and can be shipped everywhere in the U.S. From March to July, when apples aren’t in season there, we send our orchardists and merchants to New Zealand, which shares similar climate characteristics to the U.S. Pacific Northwest in many areas.
What’s a fun fact about a fruit that most people don’t know?

In order to turn orange, citrus fruit needs the cold. When temperatures are too warm at night, oranges, HoneyBells, and other fruit will stay green—even though they’re perfectly sweet and delicious. They just don’t take on that beautiful orange hue.