Cherries Halfway Done

Cherries Half Way Done. I’m Greg Martin with today’s Fruit Grower Report.

On Friday we began talking with BJ Thurlby, executive director of Northwest Cherries about the 2011 cherry crop and he says most growers are really optimistic about this years crop even after another slow start. So far they have shipped right around 9 1/2 million boxes and the quality is really quite good. I will vouch for that as I set here munching on a bowl of very nice, large Bing cherries. Thurlby says the key right now is to get the marketing ramped up.

THURLBY: We’ve had strong support and strong programming going. We’ve had from media pickup, gosh we’ve been in the New York Times this week. We’ve got some major magazines that are running articles relative to cherries right now and the obviously we’ve got strong retail promotions where we’ve got large displays that are now starting to show up. We’ve got ad activity going. You know the consumer price this year seems to be right around $2.99. So far it’s working. That’s probably a little high if you’re looking at the 4th of July holiday and so forth and we missed that so we’re seeing a little bit higher retail and so far the cherries are selling right through it. When you have a great product you can sell the product for a little more and consumers seem to be really responding.

Thurlby says the export markets are gearing as well.

THURLBY: We’ve got programs going in 18 countries and they’re all kicking in right now and we’ve been blessed because we have the right product for those markets.

Estimates here at about the half way point of the season are that there could be 16-million boxes shipped.

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