Jon Zaninovich of Jasmine Vineyards Discusses New Varieties and Merchandising Tools
DELANO, CA - Can summer officially start without table grapes? In my opinion, California’s grape season sets off summer perfectly, with the promise of new varieties and dazzling retail displays that make hungry consumers say ‘Yes please’ to grape offerings.
I chatted with Jon Zaninovich, President, to learn a bit more about the company’s current grape varieties after its first day of harvest, as well as the social media campaigns that help support the program—and get people excited for the ultimate summer fruit.
The company’s most popular variety, Sweet Celebration, will be available in August, with Autumn King coming out in September and October. In addition to these varieties, Jasmine Vineyards is designing a display box for GrapesToGo™ (the new 125g single-size bag), which, Jon tells me, is sure to attract consumers’ eyes.
“Right now we're designing a display box for GrapesToGo (our new 125g single-size bag) as part of our 2018 product launch,” Jon tells me. “Since retailers have limited space for promotions, we work with the packaging and the boxes to grab attention in the produce aisle. In addition, these bags offer many merchandising opportunities beyond the produce department—in grab-and-go sections and prepared food aisles, for Back to School promotions, summer picnics, sweet treats for Halloween, and so on.”
In addition to this exciting news, the grape-growers also just celebrated the first day of harvest.
“It’s still early in the season for Jasmine, but our first variety—Flame seedless—is right on time, so harvest season has officially started,” Jon shares with me. “We’ve had a nice, cool, dormant season which usually bodes well for our crop.”
The team took to Instagram to share the good news, a tactic it’s been employing more and more.
“Our staff and crew have been getting really involved in telling Jasmine's story,” Jon says. “Fresh Alerts™ is our weekly email service that kicks off this week with the 2018 harvest. We post videos and snapshots of just-picked varieties—primarily on Instagram—throughout the season. It's as close to being in the field as you can get, without making the trip out here.”
If you want to stay in the know with what’s going on with California table grapes and Jasmine Vineyards, you can sign up here.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to hunt down some table grapes of my own.
