P.E.I. has an apple store, but it doesn’t sell iPhones, iPads or Apple Watches.
The P.E.I. Apple Store has been set up by Red Shore Orchards to try and extend the season for producers and market Island apples during the holidays.
“With our company, what we have been doing is looking forward to infrastructure that needs to be in place to be able to move the industry along on the Island,” said Nancy MacKay, president of Red Shore Orchards.
Some of that infrastructure involved cold storage facilities, MacKay said.
MacKay said the Red Shore Orchard location in the West Royalty Industrial Park is now offering controlled-atmosphere storage that preserves the apples.
“You can take apples out in June and still have really fresh apples,” she said, adding it has only been up and running for three weeks.
The store is selling apples from four different Island producers, along with cider and locally made honey.
“We are buying from other growers so they can have a piece of the Island market instead of everybody trying to do it individually.”
I think that our honey crisp apple may become the replacement of our Christmas apple on the Island.— Nancy MacKay
It’s located on Milky Way, right beside the Cows Creamery, doesn’t have a cashier and works on the honour system.
“For each different variety of apple as well as the honey and cider they can scan a QR code to their phone and it will bring them right to our online checkout,” she said.
“Then we do have a secure cash can for the people down there who still like to deal with cash.”
‘Can’t tend to those side markets’
It’s similar to roadside produce boxes, which are typically set up all across the Island during the summer, MacKay said.
“A lot of people still like to get local product and a lot of times to get it they have to go to the locations, and we’re usually pretty busy farming — we can’t tend to those side markets,” she said.
“Now us pulling together, or buying apples from other Island producers, we will be able to do that and their products still get sold.”
Typically, Island producers sell apples to areas such as New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, which are then bagged up and sold under a different brand and sent back, MacKay said.
“For us to move the product to New Brunswick or Nova Scotia for it to come back really doesn’t make sense,” she said.
“So it gives an opportunity for us to keep the locally grown apples on the Island and cut out some of the unnecessary costs that usually get passed on to the consumer.”
Some apples grow better on the Island than others. MacKay said red delicious typically don’t grow well on the Island, but a rainy season meant some massive honey crisp and she is hoping people accept that as the “Island Christmas apple.”
“Being born and bred and raised on the Island my whole life is everybody’s memory of that Christmas apple,” she said. “I think that our honey crisp apple may become the replacement of our Christmas apple on the Island.”
The temporary location on Milky Way will be set up until January, but MacKay said she plans to sell apples at the location in the West Royalty Industrial Park until the stock runs out.
The hope is to eventually market Island apples to the United States, MacKay said.
