Sunpunch, the newest release from the federal apple breeding program at the Summerland Research and Development Centre, is pure sunshine for Amarjit Lalli.
“Sunpunch has got a really fantastic tropical taste,” says Lalli, who grows apples and cherries in south Kelowna. “And it looks absolutely gorgeous; the colour is a little more yellow than Ambrosia.”
The apple was formally announced March 11 by Summerland Varieties Corp. (SVC), which will license the variety to growers and collect royalties.
“This is an apple that the research centre identified early on as being very special,” says SVC general manager Sean Beirnes. “It really checks all the boxes. The fruit is high quality and very firm, it packs well, and the trees are productive.”
Lalli agrees.
“It’s a vigorous tree. You have to keep on it with summer pruning and thinning, but other than that it grows like any other apple,” he says. “It is ready to pick just before Ambrosia, so that is convenient, and it goes directly into cold storage, which actually helps with the taste.”
Beirnes calls the new apple’s storage ability its superpower, allowing it to fill a niche in the market.
“It does extremely well in cold storage, better than any other apple that we have seen,” he says. “Because it stores so well, packers and marketers can hold on to it and let the other apples they have in cold storage flow through into January. Then they can bring in Sunpunch fresh before they tap into what they have in [controlled atmosphere] storage.”
The new apple is being released as a club variety, with Martin’s Family Fruit Farm managing production in Ontario and BC, where there are five growers. Algoma Orchards in Ontario and Verger des Bois-Francs in Quebec also have production rights. Retail sales begin in fall 2026.
“Club apples are managed varieties with marketers and their growers paying a licence fee to plant the trees and agreeing to produce a certain amount and quality of fruit,” Beirnes explains. “In return, the variety manager regulates the number trees that are planted in order to match the market conditions and establishes quality standards and branding for the apple.”
Lalli has been growing Sunpunch for the last eight years as part of national trials that have seen some 100,000 trees go into the ground in BC, Ontario and Quebec.
“When I’m out walking my dog, I give some to the neighbours and they are blown away by the taste; they say it’s the best apple they have ever had,” he says. “We are looking for an apple to kind of get the industry out of the doldrums we are in right now, and I think this is it.”
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