05/10/07 Apple Exports

Apple Exports. I'm Greg Martin with today's Fruit Grower Report. It's always nice when as a business owner someone really likes and wants your product. It's especially nice when they are willing to pay for it as well. Right now it seems that the rest of the world just can't get enough of Washington apples. Todd Fryhover is the project manager for the Washington Apple Commission. FRYHOVER: This has been a remarkable year for exports of apples to many different countries that we service. And we are actually on par, you know if you look at last season we had a hundred million boxes and we shipped roughly about 29% of that fruit overseas. This year we are on par for about 96 million boxes and we are going to be approaching if not exceeding the amount exported last year even with these record prices that are happening right now. Fryhover says there is a great deal of interest in many different countries. FRYHOVER: Canada and Mexico have just been absolutely fantastic, great markets for multiple varieties as well as some of the Asian countries have been fantastic too. The only market that has shown maybe a reduction  a definitive reduction of course is Taiwan because they are so one dimensional but China is taking more fruit, Western Russia has shown remarkable interest in fruits. So&what variety is the most popular in the export market? FRYHOVER: Red delicious remains our number one export variety. It accounts for over 40% of all the total exports. That's today's Fruit Grower Report. I'm Greg Martin on the Northwest Ag Information Network.