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Marketing New York’s exclusive apples, Montedoro wins limelight herself
Marketing New York’s exclusive apples, Montedoro wins limelight herself
Rena Montedoro, vice president of sales and marketing for New York’s Crunch Time Apple Growers, is featured in the annual “Women in Produce” issue of The Packer, a national trade publication for the produce industry.
Montedoro is one of eight women, from a potato grower in Idaho to a grower and importer of vegetables and fruits in Miami, highlighted in the special section.
Crunch Time’s headquarters is in Lockport, but it represents the 147 New York growers of licensed apple varieties SnapDragon and RubyFrost, including at least 18 growers in the Rochester area. The organization hired Montedoro in 2017.
“We know apples. But what we really needed was a talented marketer,” said Joel Crist, Crunch Time’s board chairman and a grower from the Hudson Valley.
Since 2017, sales of the two apple varieties doubled, reaching about 200,000 bushels each in a year. Meanwhile, social media engagements for the apples’ social media platforms has gone from 15 likes to 3 million interactions.
“Rena creates content that is just stunning, with only one support staff and relatively low budget,” Crist said.
Montedoro arrived without experience in produce, but had directed creation of marketing materials, down to the food styling for photographs, for Cutco Corp. in Olean, and previously was a magazine editor.
“I learned to work very quickly in advertising firms and publishing, and this job married that fast pace with my love of food,” Montedoro said. “It’s very exciting to be marketing a product I get to see literally ‘grow’ on the trees. I love visiting the orchards and the packhouses. I feel like I’m in my element.”
Her marketing efforts have included bringing the produce from a rural setting to the bustle of New York City and filming people in Times Square trying SnapDragon apples for the first time.
“The consumer feedback was really phenomenal,” Montedoro said.
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