It takes many years to develop new varieties of apples and pears and even longer before the newly planted trees start producing marketable volumes of fruit. For this reason, fruit growers are very interested in assessing whether there are new varieties which could help them respond to market demands. The Belgian research centre Proefcentrum Fruitteelt (pcfruit), has set up the Operational Group `Plant for a Customer’ to increase the success ratio of new varieties and reduce the risk for growers of planting an unsuccessful variety.