June 9, 2021 Summer fruit season is in full swing, but Stemilt is looking ahead to early August and a quick start to the new apple season with the return of Rave brand MN55 cultivar apples. The Honeycrisp-MonArk cross has unique early harvest timing in the three regions it currently grows in. This allows retailers to ignite their apple categories with ads starting in mid-August. Stemilt marketing director Brianna Shales and communications manager Katie Harmon discussed the category impact that Rave apples enjoy during a special edition of Fast Facts The Cast. According to Nielsen scan data, Rave was the No. 4 club apple nationally during the first six weeks of the apple season from early August to mid-September 2019. The 2019 crop of Rave was the largest volume crop since the apple’s introduction in 2018. Rave apples accounted for 5.9 percent of club apple volume and 6.2 percent of sales with a $2.13 per pound average retail.