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a = {...
'apples' 1 2;...
'orange' 2 3;...
'apples' 3 4;...
'Pear' 4 5;...
'apples' 5 6;};
% Extract the first 3 items
a2 = a(1:3,:);
% Apply findgroups
[G, fields] = findgroups(a2(:,1));
% Execute splitapply
x = splitapply(@sum, cell2mat(a2(:,2)), G);
% Summarize the result
tResult = table(fields, x,...
'VariableNames',{'Item','Value'});
% Show the result
disp(tResult)