Cherries Finishing Up

Cherries Finishing Up. I’m Greg Martin with today’s Fruit Grower Report.

We have seen a kind of strange growing season this year. Due to cooler than normal conditions it took about 2 extra weeks to get things going for things like cherries. Fortunately very little rain damaged the crop and then in the middle of it all it got hot. Very hot. And that has created a strong market with lots of cherries. According to NW Cherries, BJ Thurlby that has brought down the price at the store.

THURLBY: You know there were prices even below 99 cents out there certainly in the domestic market which on one side maybe if you are a consumer you’d probably think this is great! I’ve never tried cherries before, I’m going to give them a shot and I think that were going to see that this year

Of course there is a down side to a lower priced cherry.

THURLBY: The reality is – 99 cents – you can run it any way you want but the retailer is not really making much money there and I guarantee you the grower is not so the long haul is we can’t stay in business with a 99 cent cherry. The positive short term/long term for the grower if there is a bright side of that is that we are hopefully cracking into that Generation Y consumer this year.

Most cherry producers are just about done picking for 2009.

THURLBY: We think about 7 more days. It might trickle out a little beyond that and I think it’s probably worth mentioning in 58 days we’ve shipped almost 18 and a half million boxes. Last year we shipped for 90 days so this season has just really been compressed.

That’s today’s Fruit Grower Report. I’m Greg Martin on the Northwest Ag Information Network.