—story by Kate Prengaman
—photo by Ross Courtney
When was the last time cherry growers had a normal season? Perhaps there is no such thing as a “normal” cherry season — which is why the Northwest industry invests significant time and resources into crop estimation every season.
“Estimating is one of the most important things to the cherry deal,” said Robert Kershaw, CEO of Domex Superfresh Growers, during a panel discussion on marketing at the Cherry Institute in Yakima, Washington, in January. He and fellow panelists discussed the challenges of handling the compressed 2023 crop volume — like trying to shove 6 inches of water through a 2-inch pipe, in Kershaw’s analogy — and emphasized that with good estimates and a better pace of harvest, the industry can profitably handle a big crop.
“We can sell 26 million, we can sell 30 million profitably, if we have the spread right,” Kershaw said.
It was too soon for the first Northwest crop estimate when this issue went to press, though California released its estimate calling for a 10.2-million-box crop starting in late April and with peak volumes between May 15 and June 6. The Northwest Cherry Growers plans to release its first-round estimate after the five-state meeting, representing Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Utah and Montana, on May 15.
What looks like a single crop estimate each season is actually the amalgamation of assessments from field staff at most of the Northwest’s warehouses, where they painstakingly track crop load for blocks of each cultivar in each growing district.
“We go through the entire grower list, starting with last year’s tonnage,” said Don Olmstead of River Valley Fruit in Grandview, Washington. Those numbers are revised, block by block, by looking at bud counts and the number of cherries developing, on average, within those buds.
“Bloom data is another huge one, because it gives us an estimated harvest date for each variety. That’s huge for the plant,” Olmstead said. He makes estimates at bloom, at fruit set and after the first drop, as well as following any weather event.
For the company, the crop estimates guide harvest labor decisions and sales desk strategy, he said, but sharing the estimates across the industry makes them even more valuable.
“The more accurate we are, the better we are,” Olmstead said. “The big thing it comes down to is: Can (the industry) move the volume? And without those numbers, it can be a train wreck.”
Putting together the industry’s estimates requires a lot of communication and collaboration, said David Marshall, an agricultural economist with consulting firm Agrimanagement, contracted by the Washington State Fruit Commission to compile the estimate.
“This is about trust, that we won’t share their confidential information, but in aggregate, it helps everybody,” Marshall said. “One person’s perspective is not complete; I’m trying to represent the entire industry.”
That’s because everyone in the industry has their own perspective on the crop. Take this season for example: It might seem like a very short crop from the vantage point of Wenatchee Heights, Washington, where a freeze hit in January, but it looks like a good crop from the lower elevations that were spared.
To get consistent insight from across the industry, Marshall sends a series of questionnaires to 16 or so field staff from different warehouses representing 75 percent, or more, of the industry’s acreage. The effort started with a steering committee in 1998, with field staff from seven packers gathering to share data, but it now takes place via a secure website. Participants log in, enter their estimates for each region where they have orchards, and share general insights. Within the site, field staff can see their past data but not the data from any other warehouse.
Marshall aggregates the information for a series of internal reports each spring and shares those with participating warehouses and Northwest Cherry Growers, where staff plan out the industry’s collective promotional efforts. His reports include the quantitative insights on bloom dates and volume predictions, as well as qualitative comments from anonymized field staff. In the first-round report from last May, for example, field staff reported concerns of “compressing bloom dates” long before the midseason market crunch that cut the crop from an early estimate of 23.8 million boxes to a final 18.7 million boxes shipped.
No estimate is ever perfect, Marshall said. He refines it four times throughout the season: postbloom, fruit set, preseason and midseason. He tracks the accuracy of his predictions, too, to ensure the process is working as well as it can.
“The more people that participate, it makes it better for everyone,” he said.
Between 2010 and 2020, most of his preseason estimates came in 5 to 8 percent under, according to Marshall’s records. But in the past three seasons, the estimate has been too high, due to difficult-to-predict events like the heat dome in 2021 and the growers who walked away from fruit in 2023.
While the compressed 2023 crop was one of Mother Nature’s occasional, inevitable curveballs, fruit sales were also hampered by the fact that it was a large crop coming on the heels of a short crop.
“Any time you go from a short crop, with the snow on the ground in April of 2022, it’s going to make the next two years hell,” Kershaw said. “You have to get the shelf space back, get the consumers back.”
Detailed estimates lay the groundwork to do that, he said.
“It’s not about the size of the crop, it’s what we need to move each and every day — that’s what establishes the market,” Kershaw said. “In my 30 years of selling cherries, we’ve had 18-million-box crops that felt like 35, and 23-million-box crops that felt like 12.” •
Marketing matters
—story by Kate Prengaman
—photo by TJ Mullinax
Forget 2023. The future for Northwest cherries is bright.
That was the message from leaders of three major marketing desks during the Cherry Institute, organized by the Northwest Cherry Growers in January.
“Cherries is the one time a year we get really excited about our jobs,” said Jeff Baldwin, sales director for Sage Fruit Co. “We have something people want, let’s go out and market it. We just need a gentle trickle coming out of California and a trickle in from the Washington crop and we’ll get back to some normalcy.”
B.J. Thurlby, president of the Northwest Cherry Growers, asked the panelists what hindsight teaches about the difficult 2023 season.
“It’s heartbreaking when you have to sell great fruit for no money. I’ve never sold beautiful fruit for such low prices,” said Mike Taylor, vice president of Stemilt Growers.
The unusually late California crop set up “a series of calamities” in the market, he said. When California cherry growers missed Memorial Day, it signaled to retailers that it was a small crop, so they weren’t ready for the late-arriving volumes that backed up as Northwest cherries started coming off the trees.
“Accurately estimating start dates and tonnage is hugely important,” Taylor said. “We don’t communicate well enough between the Northwest and California.”
And, contrary to what some people might think, Taylor said California growers are not strategically trying to shift their season later and compete with the Northwest crop. They are replacing Bings with high-yielding, early cultivars.
The normal spread between California and the Northwest, as well as the Northwest’s regional spread, is key to making a successful season, Baldwin said.
“We can handle a 24-million-box crop, no problem, but it needs to be an eight- to 10-week spread,” he said.
Looking ahead to this season, Robert Kershaw, CEO of Domex Superfresh Growers, recommended getting back to the basics of selling an impulse item: position in the store, promotion and pricing correctly. During the pandemic years, there was such high demand for cherries (and many other things) that shippers and retailers pulled back on advertising as the fruit sold itself, he said.
“But that’s not the new normal,” he said. “All the bad habits that were created during COVID need to be thrown away and we need to hit restart with what has worked for decades.”
Thurlby also asked the marketers for their thoughts on pricing.
“With our growing costs right now, there is no way we can be less than $2.99 a pound,” Kershaw said, adding that shipping volume determines price. If the industry ships below 350,000 boxes a day, prices can go up, but at about 500,000, the price must drop.
Taylor said that on the shoulders of a season, prices can go up to $5 a pound, but the price needs to come down to move volume.
“If we have a normal flow of good-quality fruit, we can sell a lot of cherries at $4 a pound,” he said. “But if we put up fruit that isn’t worth $2.99 a pound at retail, we degrade our own market.”
Baldwin said he’s a proponent of $3.99 base prices and $2.99 ads, which will return as least $1 back to the grower. “That $3.99 a pound every day leaves this industry sustainable,” he said.
As for the organic opportunity, the panelists said strong planning is necessary for success. It’s hard to get shelf space for a seasonal niche, Taylor said.
“We need three weeks of advance planning, minimum, to get an ad plan,” Baldwin said. “If we have an estimated pick date, we can plan, we can move it, but we can’t have them showing up in three days. That’s a recipe for disaster.”
Kershaw said it would help the industry to consolidate its organic fruit into one program retailers can depend on.
There’s no doubt it’s a tough time for agriculture in general, but panelists stressed that the outlook for cherries is bright.
“We don’t have any competition. Apples, berries, it’s a complicated web, but for cherries, from June 1st to September 1st, we’re it,” Kershaw said. As retailers around the world look to build a year-round cherry program, opportunity abounds.
Taylor agreed.
“The consumer experience is just getting better and better and better,” Taylor said. “We’ve come so far, and I couldn’t be more optimistic.” •
Leave A Comment