Gary Davis says several years spent trying to get the Japanese to eat Michigan’s sour cherries were the pits.
The Japanese are devoted to cherry blossoms, but the nation never developed a taste for the sour version of the fruit used in many processed foods, notably cherry pie.
“After two years and a million dollars invested, there was essentially nothing happening,” says Davis, export marketing director for the Cherry Marketing Institute in Okemos. “When we started, less than 3 percent of Japanese consumers even knew what a tart cherry was. Food processors told us, `If our customers don’t know what it is, how can we use it?’ “
Last year a surprising thing happened. The almost non-existent Japanese sales of American cherries shot up to 4 million pounds. Pies with Michigan cherries became available for sale in 50,000 Japanese stores.
Why? Davis credits Dale Cooper, a fictional FBI agent in an offbeat television drama who likes to drop in for dessert at a diner in the fictional town of Twin Peaks.
“Damn,” he likes to say. “That’s fine cherry pie!”
“Twin Peaks” ran in the United States in the 1990 and ’91 seasons. After it began reshowing in Japan, the nation was gripped by a sudden yen for cherry pie.
“`Twin Peaks’ now has a devoted following, like `Star Trek,’ ” Davis says. “Busloads of Japanese tourists go to the site of the `Twin Peaks’ restaurant in (Snoqualmie) Washington. People are buying the videocassettes of the series at $400 a shot.”
Davis is not prepared to give all the credit to the show. The institute’s marketing efforts set the table for the cherry pies by stirring interest among chefs of many of the nation’s upscale restaurants. The restaurants began offering pie to customers about the time “Twin Peaks” came along, he says.
“Some people said, `Hey, you got lucky,’ ” Davis says. “But we spent three years working with these chefs.”
The institute represents 1,600 cherry growers in Michigan, Wisconsin and Utah. Michigan is the nation’s leading producer of tart cherries, with 110 million pounds in 1991, about 58 percent of the total.
In Japan, the passion for tart cherries is still blossoming. This year the U.S. industry plans to export 5 million to 6 million pounds of the cherries to Japan, Davis says. That’s enough to make 5 million to 6 million Japanese cherry pies, which are about half the American size.
At the same time, the industry is promoting new products, including a cherry drink, cherry gum and cherry candy. About the only concern now has to do with the Japanese reputation for food fads. “Our battle is to make sure cherries become a regular part of their diet and not just a fad,” Davis says.
