The formula for success in an ever-expanding global sweet cherry market is easy to define: deliver to the consumer, with style, an extraordinary product at the optimum time. But the execution will be more difficult, requiring the industry to focus on marketing, variety selection, and horticultural practices, an agricultural economist said. “What’s needed to succeed is to deliver with flair a superlative product at the optimum time that will woo pampered consumers while meeting the needs of retailers, and to do that at a profit,” said Dr. Desmond O’Rourke, president of Belrose, Inc., a fruit consulting firm in Pullman, Washington. […]