Harvesting

Harvested when ripe.

The Pink Lady® harvest is one of the latest. It begins between late October and early November.

The growers harvest their fruit by hand and in several phases to make sure they only select the ripest fruit. The rest will be picked in a later phase. The harvest thus lasts between 3 and 5 weeks.

To maintain good fruit quality, they are picked only during dry weather, starting at the bottom of the tree and moving upwards in order to prevent apples from being damaged by falling onto each other.

Each apple is lifted carefully with the palm of the hand, and tilted upward until it comes off without any damage being caused. The apple then comes off the branch with its stem, and is then gently placed in crates. All pickers are trained to this traditional picking technique.