NW Cherry Challenges in 2023 Pt 2
From the Ag Information Network, I’m Bob Larson with today’s Fruit Grower Report. Last summer’s NW cherry crop was outstanding, but a lack of communications about a later-than-normal California crop made selling our cherries more difficult.
NW Cherry Growers President BJ Thurlby says the prices didn’t add up …
THURLBY … “Our particular target price for adds would probably be in that $3.59 to $3.99 range because at that price the consumer continues to get a good deal and the growers can actually make a little bit of money on the back end.”
But, Thurlby says, the timing was off …
THURLBY … “You know, at the same time, there needs to be some hot ads out there during the season too, whether they’re, you know, $2.99 or whatever, we need to see that and we didn’t really see that pricing last year until the third week of July.”
Thurlby wonders, had we known …
THURLBY … “You know, and this is way before California came out and said, holy smokes, we’ve missed our window for Dormex, we’ve missed our opportunity to hit the Memorial Day Weekend and we’ve got problems here. Of course, we didn’t hear about that until the forest was burning down and on fire around us as we started to pick.”
That, Thurlby says changed the game completely …
THURLBY … “Usually our first cherries have a bit of a premium on them and this year there was none at all. So, you know, all the growers got kind of short-changed in terms of what the value of the fruit was because it was great fruit.”
Thurlby says talks between California and NW cherry growers are ongoing to avoid similar issues down the road.
