The blush color of Rainier cherries sets the fruit apart in the marketplace. But color is also one of the cherry’s biggest challenges. Consumers must be educated that the light-colored cherries are sweet and ripe. Production trends of Rainier and the early Rainier-type variety called Early Robin have shown steady increases in acreage and volume. For the last five years, Rainier has represented between 7 and 11 percent of the total crop, and it’s now the third most popular variety grown in the Pacific Northwest, behind Bing and Sweetheart. In 2012, the Rainier cherry pack was just below 2.3 ­million […]