New York State and New England are welcoming a favorable apple crop this year. "It's a very good crop with great color, very good size and flavor," says John Russell of JP Sullivan & Co.
Overall this year's volume is slightly larger than the 2023-2024 crop. "The fruit is a little bigger in the northeast. We had much better coloring and plenty of moisture so our fruit size is very nice," says Russell, adding that this season's volume of Gala, Honeycrisp, and SnapDragon are up while Macintosh and Cortland are down. "We did have some weather events that shortened up some of the processing fruit but overall, we're on par, if not better, than some of the fresh varieties than last year. What's going to make up for volume is fruit size."
Boosting apple consumption is critical
As for demand, Russell says it could always be better and an increase in apple consumption could help. "We need to get people excited about eating apples again and to realize all the health benefits of simply eating one a day. That's the biggest challenge we face–consumption, along with the normal challenges that industries face such as increasing costs," said Russell.
Those increasing costs are heavily skewed to labor. "Growing costs always increase, but the Adverse Effect Wage Rate used as a base to pay H2A workers, along with needs for that staffing like housing and transportation, can be up to 50 percent of an apple's cost. Then add in daily farm work, packing, packaging, and more and there isn't a lot of margin left for the grower to innovate and grow their operation," he says.
As for pricing right now, it's stagnant, thanks partly to pricing pressure from overproducing regions because of oversupply. "The prices that you see at retail are unchanged and the prices that growers are seeing back to them are stagnant, if not lower than previous years," says Russell. "We continue to have a great supply of quality fruit but it doesn't seem to translate back to what growers are putting into their pockets. However, the industry is working behind the scenes to build excitement for apple consumption which will be a win for everyone."
For more information:
Trish Taylor
Riveridge Produce
Tel: +1 (616) 887-6873
[email protected]
www.riveridgeproduce.com