This week Norman Collett, one of the UK's leading top fruit marketing organisations, signed an exclusive contract with Italian breeders, Consorzio Italiano Vivaisti (CIV) for its members to plant a little know, but proven trade marked dessert variety.

Rubens is a cross between Elstar and Gala made in Ferrara in 1988, and already growing in reputation on the Continent where the first commercial volumes are now being harvested, with limited quantities appearing on supermarket shelves.

It is a bicoloured variety with a yield of between 80-100 tonnes per hectare which is comparable, and can be even higher, than Gala or Braeburn.

Collett's have had some 300 trees under trial and been impressed with the results. "There has also been a promising initial response from our supermarket customers," confirms Collett's managing director Andy Sadler.

The stage is now set to make an impact by 2010. Some of Norman Collett’s 50 growers, based in Kent, will be planting the first 30,000 trees this month, and following through with a further 70,000 in the Spring of 2008 - and plans for more over the next 5 years.

"It has the potential to become a major main stream variety” Sadler added. "The flesh is crispy, juicy and firm with a crunchy eating quality."

Dr Michaelangelo Leis of Vivai Mazzoni, which is one of the three breeders which make up CIV, alongside Salvi Vivai and Tagliana Vivai, adds that Rubens under trial here has done very well. It has already scored highly in consumer tests in Italy, Germany and Sweden against Elstar and Gala.

Following UK trials CIV are already prepared to back their reputation as a major breeder producing three million scions of apples, pears and stone fruit, as well as 120 million strawberry plants and two million asparagus crowns.

"Rubens does best in a damper, colder climate, and English fruit has already been shown to have the best colour in Europe, and an overall quality which can match any other country," he says.

He estimates that in Europe as a whole there are probably a million trees already in the ground, which are producing a total of some 4,000 tonnes which will rise to 13,000 tonnes in three years time, not including CIV's latest English recruit.

Collett's will now join the Rubens Club which already has eight European members, and is also being grown in Chile, South Africa and the United States. It provides funding based initially on surface area which is creating an ongoing international promotional programme to enhance the public identity of the fruit.