Record cherry crop reaching finish line
YAKIMA, Wash. — The Pacific Northwest is closing in on the end of a sweet cherry harvest memorable for record volume, great weather and quality and likely one of the longest.
Picking began June 6 in Mattawa, Wash., and will finish about the end of August in high-elevation orchards near Hood River, Ore., and Wenatchee, Chelan and Brewster, Wash. It will be an 80- to 90-day season.
Through Aug. 3, Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Utah and Montana shipped 25.5 million, 20-pound boxes of cherries, eclipsing the previous record of 23.2 million in 2014, according to Northwest Cherry Growers, the industry’s promotions arm in Yakima.
Washington typically grows 80 to 85 percent of the five-state crop and more than 60 percent of the national crop. Washington’s crop value was $471 million in 2016, according to USDA.
An Aug. 11 NCG email newsletter indicates the Northwest could finish at 27.5 million boxes since 2.4 million had been picked in August with likely another 2 million to go. A record 15.2 million boxes were shipped in July. Shipments averaged 500,000 boxes or more per day for more than 30 days.
NCG’s promotions and retail ads were big going into the Fourth of July and have continued through summer, which has been important to compete with heavy volumes of other fruits, said James Michael, NCG vice president of promotions.
“It was critical for us to have the volume and the No. 1 advertised item in fruit for about a month,” Michael said.
“It’s been an interesting year. Phenomenal volume, which caused a lot of price pressure, but that’s how to build new markets. We went deeper into a lot of export markets in Asia, making investments on price to grow those markets,” said Tim Evans, general sales manager of Chelan Fresh Marketing in Chelan, a large cherry sales desk.
“A lot of people around the globe don’t buy fresh cherries so there’s a lot of room for growth,” he said.
The large crop also led to fruit size not being as large as last year. Many packers decided not to pack 11.5-row cherries and smaller. Size is the number of cherries in one row of a 20-pound box.
“This year was heavy to 10 and 10.5-row and last year 55 percent of our fruit was 9.5-row and larger,” Evans said.
Wholesale prices sagged into the mid to upper $20s per box in July from the heavy volume, which was “very tough on growers,” Evans said. Prices rebounded “quite well” to $35 to $50 in August, he said.
Chelan Fruit Cooperative, which markets through Chelan Fresh, was one of few packers in the state still packing cherries on Aug. 16. Evans said the industry still shipped 112,838 boxes on Aug. 15 and would wind down to finish around Aug. 26.
Cherries were still on ad in more than 16,000 stores in the U.S. and with 400 demos set for the weekend of Aug. 12-13, Northwest Cherry Growers said. That’s unusual for that time of year.
Oneonta Starr Ranch Growers, Wenatchee, finished its harvest at the 3,400-foot elevation Halverson Ranch Orchard south of Wenatchee on Aug. 14.
It’s one of the highest elevation orchards in the state but matured earlier than expected due to warm weather, said Scott Marboe, Oneonta marketing director.
He said the season surpassed his highest expectations and that several of Oneonta’s retail customers hit record sales in volume and dollars.
“The cherries were very well received and retail displays were fantastic,” Marboe said, adding that export demand also was strong.
He also credited high-tech optical sizing and sorting equipment, now prevalent throughout the industry, for improving packing speed and product quality.