PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) – A new apple variety will soon hit grocery stores thanks to researchers at Washington State University.
Twenty years after breeding a new apple, the university held a public contest to name the variety -- and after sorting through more than 15,000 responses -- the university revealed the winning name on Tuesday: Sunflare.
The apple is described as a “tart, crunchy, juicy cross of Honeycrisp and Cripps Pink – better known under the trademark name Pink Lady.”
“Our breeding program exists to give consumers better apples to eat, and Sunflare checks all our boxes,” said Kate Evans, an apple breeder at WSU.
WSU faculty and public focus groups narrowed down the contest name entries, the university said, noting the name Sunflare won in part because it best reflects “the apple’s physical qualities.”
“This name hits all those marks,” said Jeremy Tamsen, director of the WSU Office of Commercialization. “These pinks, oranges, and yellows stand out against all the red apples on the shelf.”
Scientists first bred Sunflare in 1998 after hand-pollinating a Honeycrisp flower with pollen from a Cripps Pink tree at WSU’s Columbia View Research Orchard. Next, the apples will reach grocery stores in 2029.
“We do what the bees do,” said retired apple breeder Bruce Barritt, who launched the breeding program in 1994. “Sunflare resulted from pollination. It’s not engineered or modified in any way.”
The winning contestant, 49-year-old Ryan Escarcega, is a food service salesperson and chef from Centralia, Washington, who was inspired by the apple’s bright hues and the solar storms that made the northern lights visible in North America in the spring.
“I looked at the picture of the apple for a long time, fantasizing what it was going to taste like,” Escarcega said. “It was a real eye-catcher. I saw a nice relationship between the colors and the name. And the sun has everything to do with the growth of the product.”
This isn’t Escarcega’s first time naming apples. As a student at the Seattle Culinary Academy, Escarcega was part of a focus group that helped name the Envy apple, WSU said of the one-time Coug.
As a prize, Escarcega received a box of Sunflare apples and will get other WSU-themed gifts, including a charcuterie board engraved with the winning name. Escarcega looks forward to eating the apples, and making apple butter, apple sauce, pie filling, apple chips, or cider with them.
“I am so excited to be part of this, and even happier that the only apple I will ever eat, as of 2029, will be the best-tasting apple I have yet had the pleasure of eating,” said Escarcega. “I love it and its culinary possibilities.”
Sunflare marks the third apple to come from WSU’s breeding program, which also launched the Cosmic Crisp variety in 2019.
WSU said the university holds a patent on the apple variety and has filed trademark applications for the Sunflare brand name.
Royalties from sales of the trees, budwood, and the apple itself, will go towards research and future apple varieties at WSU.
