Cherry Market Looks To Vietnam

Cherry Market Looks To Vietnam. I'm Greg Martin with today's Fruit Grower Report. BJ Thurlby, Executive Director of Northwest Cherries recently spent time in Vietnam and came away a very different perspective of that country. THURLBY: We think Vietnam has potential to be a nice middle, median sized market for us to move forward in cherries and there's a lot more money there and affluency than I had anticipated. I was really surprised. We started in Hanoi and finished in Ho Chi Min City or Saigon as we all know it here in the states He was part of the Governors group that went on a trade mission to Korea and then toured through Vietnam and while Thurlby says they do trade with Vietnam it's nothing to write home about. THURLBY: Vietnam has been chugging along at about a thousand boxes a year for the last 5 or 6 years and then this past season in 2010 which was a medium sized crop we shipped 10-thousand boxes in there so we just thought the time was right to get into Vietnam. We need any new market that we can get. He says they came away with a very optimistic outlook. THURLBY: We really impressed some importers over there who I believe are really going to be ready to step up and take the risks that cherries offer if you're going to import them but also hopefully they will see the reward cherries offer when you import them. We really think in the near term, 2-3-4 years it has the potential to a 50-thousand box market. That's today's Fruit Grower Report. I'm Greg Martin on the Ag Information Network.