Canada's Own Hybrid Pear Could Feed A Growing Appetite For The Fruit And Local Produce

Chefs love pears. Poached in Amarone and served with marscapone, crème fraiche or couverture chocolate, they remain a dessert staple on many a five-star menu.

Canadians love pears, too. Their consumption of the fruit continues to grow even though homegrown pear production has steadily declined for 40 years despite grocery retailers’ recent acceleration of “buy local” produce campaigns.

Jim Brandle, chief executive of Ontario’s Vineland Research and Innovation Centre, said pears such as Bartlett and Bosc are trickier and far less profitable for Canadian farmers to grow than, for example, the grapes used to make the country’s internationally celebrated icewines.

To read the rest of the story, please go to: Financial Post