Buy Ontario Apples

Posted by Daniel Workman Dec 4, 2007

First of all, I like writing about the apple trade because I enjoy apples - particularly Royal Galas and Empires. Ontario's most famous apple remains the McIntosh, which has a tarter taste.

I live near Toronto's St. Lawrence Market, so I enjoy year-round access to Ontario-grown produce.

I was delighted to read Jennifer Bain's article The darling of the apple world (Toronto Star, November 28/07). Jennifer reveals that the province of Ontario produces 42% of Canadian apples.

Bain also points out that Ontario ships apples to the United Kingdom, Europe, the Caribbean and Mexico. Still, Canada's central province imports from apple producing countries including China, the U.S. and Australia. For example, Granny Smiths stocked in Ontario supermarkets are likely from Australia where it's a native brand. Similarly, Pink Lady apples are typically imported.

Honeycrisp and Ambrosia are two of Ontario's fastest-growing apples. Both are sweet, firm and crisp. But the top-selling Ontario apples continue to be the McIntosh (30.2 million pounds in 2006), Red Delicious (16.3 million pounds) and Empire (15.5 million pounds).

Hopefully, the sweeter-tasting Honeycrisps and Ambrosians will spearhead a rise in Ontario's apple exports. Now if we could only get the Canadian loonie back to its former discounted self against the U.S. dollar ...