Opinion: Remembering Allan Corrin’s Youthful Spirit
July 1, 2007 Allan Corrin was always full of ideas. The man was positively bubbling over with them. Every time I bumped into him, and I do mean every single time, he simply had to take me aside and tell me of his latest idea. (And we weren’t even friends; he just knew that I was in a position to share his ideas with other growers.) The man was always thinking ahead. That’s why it came as something of a shock to learn of the Reedley, CA, grower’s recent death. Sure, at the time of his death he was 80, and he’d suffered a stroke in 2005. But he just seemed so darn young in spirit.
Corrin was different. He broke my stereotype of a longtime fruit grower when I interviewed him for a cover story a half-dozen years ago about his efforts to give fruit varieties brand names. First off, when I pulled into the parking lot at Corrin Farming, he wasn’t driving a pickup truck like virtually every other grower, but a Mercedes. And I learned that he wasn’t born into agriculture like most guys. He wasn’t even from the valley. He was born and raised in Long Beach, of all places, the son of a plumbing contractor.
When he went off to college, it wasn’t to one of the big ag schools where it seems nearly all the growers, PCAs, and researchers I talk to have gone: Washington State, Fresno State, UC-Davis, or Cal Poly (the Harvard of the West.) He went to that bastion of liberal thought, UC-Berkeley.
Branding Fruit
When he did get into the fruit business, it wasn’t even into what most of us would consider the right side. He got into the wholesale produce business in Los Angeles, and stayed there for 20 years. But as he once told me, that background gave him valuable insights that were to pay off later when he became a grower. “It gave me an advantage because I knew exactly what the reactions would be (to certain varieties) at the wholesale level,” he said.
And did he ever love to introduce new varieties. There’s a reason that in virtually every story about Corrin following his death, one word was used to describe him: Innovator. He was perhaps best known as the driving force to market the Ruby Red seedless grape, but there are many others, such as the Black Corinth grape. That first day I met him, he must have ticked off a half-dozen other new ones he was working on: King Midas plums, Easy-Cut Nectarines, Baby Plums, and on and on.
Corrin was ahead of his time in that regard. He was convinced that for growers to get a bigger chunk of the fruit dollar, they had to get away from growing a commodity; they had to produce a brand. What’s funny is that I go to conferences where speakers will bring up that concept like it was something new. Heck, Corrin had been talking about that for years.
Corrin was active with the California Grape & Tree Fruit League for many years, had served as president, and received their highest award, the Mentor’s Award, in 2005. In an item on Corrin’s passing in the league newsletter, the staff fondly recalled that in his last visit to the office, he shared with them his latest idea: “fruit on a stick.” I’m sure I’m not the only one to smile and nod when I read that. It was good to meet you, Allan.
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