For apple growers who are hoping that new varieties will be the key to staying profitable in the future, Steve Lutz has some sobering thoughts. While new varieties will create excitement and vitality in the apple category, the failure rate will be extremely high, he told growers at a recent Fruit School on ­Competitive Orchard Systems. Lutz, who is vice president of a consulting firm called The Perishables Group, said that of the 30,000 new products introduced at retail annually, less than 1 percent are still being successfully marketed five years later. “We have to accept failure as part of […]