Frequently Asked Questions

Question Topics:

• Cameo?

  Comments: Just finished eating one of your apples. The label says it is a Cameo 3066. Great apple, but never heard of it, what is it's blood-lines. Great site. Thanks.
  
  Bill,
  
  The Cameo was found about ten years ago in Cashmere, WA as a chance seedling. It grew in the place of a dead red delicious tree, and was cultivated as a red delicious. The farmer discovered that it wasn't a red, and paid close attention to it. The parent was either a red delicious or a golden delicious. This was determined because the orchard only had those two varieties in it. Cameo is not the original name. It had to be changed because of trademark infringements. I can't remember the original name. It eats and looks like an old common red, but stores much better. It has to be multiple picked when the tree fills out and shading occurs in the inside and lower portions of the tree. The maturity indicators used are the same as what is commonly used for red delicious. It tends to grow huge fruit, so we wait till late in the season to hand thin. When I think of the original name I'll let you know. Age is slowly setting in!

• Pink Lady?

  I have a question what is a pink lady apple? I know its a cross between something and something, what are the somethings. My guess is that its a cross between granny smith and braeburn.
  
  Jeff,
  
  Thanks so much for you inquiry. As always we are pleased when we get any feedback from our end customers. Per the information available to me, the Pink Lady variety of apples is a result of a cross between Golden Delicious and Lady Williams apples. Upon further investigation I found out that the Lady Williams apples comes from unknown parentage but are believed to be from Red Granny Smith and another apple.

• Braburns Genetically Modified?

  Are your Braebrun Apples genetically modified?
  
  Lisa,
  
  Braeburns originated in New Zealand and were discovered as a chance seedling in 1952. There were no genetics being practiced in that area in the 50's. Braeburns are all natural compliments of Mother Nature and are ready for you to sink your little chompers into and enjoy! Thanks for a great question.

• How To Ripen Fruit

  How Do I Ripen My Fruit?

  Regarding your question about properly ripening your fruit- that is a great question. We recommend placing your fruit in a brown paper bag out on your kitchen table. Please remember to check your fruit regularly so it doesn't overripen. Once the fruit gives to gentle pressure, it will have self-ripened! Until you are ready to eat the fruits, keep them in your refrigerator to keep the fruit's life as long as possible. If you are in a hurry, you can place a banana in with your fruit and that will speed the process along even quicker!

• Fruit Not Ripe Enough

  Gentlemen: I am glad you have a website so that I can communicate with you. My comments are not directed only at Sage, but at most of the fruit coming from out of state. Like many of your competitors, your fruit, primarily the peaches and nectarines, do not ripen normally. They stay hard and take on a strange consistencey. Much is thrown out because customers can sense that the flesh is not right and the fruit just sits. Is it genetically engineered for long shelf life? It is not what peaches and nectarines should be like. I have shopped in fruit markets in the Medditeranean and American fruit, when it comes from the west coast, is not edible in comparison. Please respond. I would like to know what is happening to our fruit.

  Thanks: Brian Frank

  Dear Mr. Frank: We appreciate you contacting our company with your concerns. Two points in response to your comments. First, soft fruit and even to some extent apples are harvested before they are fully ripe. This is to make sure the fruit arrives to the retailer in the condition they require to distribute the fruit through their “system”. Unfortunately this can lead to the results to which you referred. Second, although many people consider fruit grown in Washington and California to be the same, there is a difference. Washington fruit is picked and marketed as “Tree Ripe”, where only a small percentage of California fruit is marketed that way. The difference is that “Tree Ripe” fruit is harvested with a “quality eating experience” as the goal, not just making a good arrival at the retailer’s warehouse. This “Tree Ripe” fruit is still firm enough to make arrival but is harvested with flavor in mind. We have an advantage in Washington that makes it easier to do this because of our climate. We work hard in Washington to promote this difference and follow it up the quality fruit. If you by chance received some fruit from Washington that was not truly Tree Ripe, we apologize. We welcome feedback, as this helps us direct our focus when preparing for harvest for the next crop. We hope your experience next year and all the following years will be good, when you choose Washington Tree Fruit.

• Wax On the Apples?

  I recently purchased what was advertised as organic apples (your sticker was on the apple) and to my surprise I was able to scrape off a considerable amount of what seemed to be wax. Is this an acceptable practice on organic fruit? Please let me know ..........
  
  Joe,
  
  Good question! I answer this question quite often. As you probably know, conventional fruit receives a light application of shellac wax that increases the shine and seals the apple to help reduce shrink. This process is required by the retail buyer to enhance the appearance of the fruit. If it were up to us we wouldn't wax apples at all. It's an expensive process and usually slows down production. For fruit to be certified organic, post harvest waxes are not accepted by the U.S.D.A. There are U.S.D.A. inspectors on site while the fruit is being packed to monitor the process. I can assure you there are no post harvest chemicals on your fruit! But.......there is wax on your apple. So what is it? (This is the part I enjoy) The wax that you have encountered is neither shellac nor carnuba. Thanks to mother nature, apples produce there own natural wax. Some apple varieties produce more than others. Unfortunately, we can't control the application or shine or we'd use it on all of our apples. Thanks for the question.

• Truly Organic?

  How do I know if I'm buying your apples, labled organic, are truly organic? How do you assure that your "organic" apples do not get mixed in with apples that have been sprayed with pesticides, etc? Are your organic apples srayed with wax?
  
  Robert,
  
  You are on top of things my friend! Awesome question. Some of your hard earned money is channeled to the U.S.D.A.through taxes. Each grower/shipper organization in Washington State is closely and constantly monitored by U.S.D.A. inspectors. Those guys camp out down here and believe me they inspect everything including every single block of fruit we run. Before each run a U.S.D.A. inspector has to be present and informed before we can start production. The inspector is constantly random sampling during the production process and I haven't met one yet that smiles.....they mean business and don't think twice about shutting down production if there is a question. Speaking of questions......good question!

• Why put labels on your fruit?

  Comments: Why do you have to put those hard to remove stickers on my fruit?
  
  Anonymous,
  
  We place PLU stickers on all of our boxed fruit at the request of our retailers. Bagged fruit will generally not be stickered. The PLU sticker associates a unique number with each variety of fruit. This number is the same for each variety throughout our industry. This number is placed on the PLU sticker and the sticker is attached with food-grade adhesive to each piece of boxed fruit we pack. The retailer uses this number for inventory control (for example to track which varieties are selling the best).
  
  Determining the best food-grade adhesive to use for the sticker is unfortunately art not science. Retailers demand that the fruit arrive with stickers attached while consumers demand that the stickers be easy to remove. We have recently upgraded our labels to a vinyl material that should hold up better in varying conditions. We also recently invested in machinery that will sticker the fruit while leaving the tab of the sticker free. We will continue to research better materials for the sticker so that in a variety of temperatures and moisture conditions, and for a variety of fruit skin textures and levels of firmness, they will hold up and at the same time be easy to remove. We will continue to pursue potential solutions. If your sticker leaves food-grade adhesive, one method of removing this is to use the sticker itself and dab the adhesive a couple of times.

• Labels Edible?

  Are the labels on your apples edible?
  
  Anonymous,
  
  No.
  The labels we use are all F.D.A. approved and contain no lead. These labels should not be eaten. If they are not seen and accidently eaten, in a normal situation, they will not hurt you.

• Direct Shipments

  Your Jonagold-organic apples (94147) are the best I ever tasted. The store I usually go to buy the apples no longer distribute them. My family eats about 15-20 pounds per month. Is it possible to ship the apples to my house?
  
  Paul,
  
  

  Regarding your inquiry on individual carton shipments - at this time, shippers like ourselves, cannot ship individual cartons by any other means than by UPS or Fed Ex. This presents a few problems for the consumer: The price of shipment is very high and the handling is less than favorable as the apples or pears usually arrive with severe bruising and warmer than they should be. With the price of shipment, you would want a great piece of fruit!
  
  There is a website on line, http://www.applesonline.com/, that has done shipments in the past to consumers. This website is not affiliated with Sage in anyway and we cannot guarantee the website in anyway, but it is actually a website that another consumer told us about! Other than buying the fruit in cartons from your local grocery stores (a lot of produce managers are happy to help you out!!), this might be the way to do it! Let me know how it all works out!

• Flat Peaches

  Comments: We bought some "flat peaches" with your name, what can you tell us about it. They were very good.
  
  Norma,

  Thank you so much for the contact and question. We at Sage just love it when we get this type of question. The flat peach is (I believe) the most unique of the peach varieties and, from your experience, you know that they are round in shape but narrow in depth (resembling a donut). The flat peaches are white fleshed (although I think that yellow flesh varieties are on their way) with low acid content, thereby giving it the soft, sweet and creamy taste and texture. These peaches are descendants of the flat peaches of China and were first grown in America in the 1800’s.

  Throughout my research for your question, I kept coming across very similar descriptions of the flat peach. “They are very sweet and very, very juicy.” So, the next time you hav e and opportunity to pick some up...do so and remember to always request the Sage fruit label when purchasing fresh fruit. Please feel free to contact me with any additional questions you may have about any of our products.