Cherries NW & California Pt 1
From the Ag Information Network, I’m Bob Larson with today’s Fruit Grower Report. Last summer’s fumbled communications between California and Northwest cherry growers could turn out to be a valuable lesson in the years ahead.
Northwest Cherry Growers president, BJ Thurlby says California’s later than normal harvest really caught everyone off guard …
THURLBY … “The takeaway by these retailers, they were scrambling and pulling ads because they didn’t get fruit over Memorial Day. And that’s not necessarily the California grower’s fault, but they could have been more forthright and just said, hey, okay we aren’t going to have fruit for Memorial Day, but we need ads the week after or the week after that and let’s get excited and really put a hot price out there that will move the fruit.”
Thurlby says we’ll have to try much harder moving forward …
THURLBY … “So, it’ll be interesting to see that transpires, but I’ve had many conversations already with some of the different California groups because they call and they just kind of want to hear about, you know, what do think, what’s going differently?”
And here in a few weeks, Thurlby says we’ll really get down to business …
THURLBY … “We’ve had several meetings, I have anyway, with some of the leaders in the California industry, but we’ve got a formal meeting set up here at the end of February where we’re going to drive down to Portland and the California guys are going to fly. We’re going to all get in a room and just kind of talk about, you know, the dynamics of on these weird years what might work better, and I certainly have some opinions.”
Thurlby says communications and coordinated advertising will be key in the years ahead.
