Limited Organic Cherries Until Mid-June

The California cherry industry got hit with several devastating rainstorms in mid-May, significantly damaging the crop and virtually assuring there no organic cherries on the market until the second week of June, when the Pacific Northwest enters the game.

With the constant battle of pest pressure, cherries are a difficult crop to grow as a certified organic crop and there aren’t very many produced in California’s main cherry region of the San Joaquin Valley.  Combined with the crop-depleting rains of May and a buyer would currently be hard pressed to find commercial organic cherries in the marketplace.

Kyle Persky, sales manager, Rivermaid Trading Company

Kyle Persky, sales manager at Rivermaid Trading Company, Lodi, CA, confirmed that the third storm----which hit earlier this week and brought hail with it-----was the worst and has left the California industry with far fewer cherries than anticipated for Memorial Day Weekend ads.   He said most retailers across the country will be shorted on their conventional cherry orders and he knew of no organic shipments.

Blaine Markley, director of domestic sales for Rainier Fruit Company, Yakima, WA, said the Northwest has a good crop of organic cherries this year and Rainier will ship its first fruit in that category during the week of June 9.  “We tend to be earlier than most and our organic cherries will be ready a few days before the conventional fruit,” she told OPN on May 21.

The Rainier executive said the company tries to establish programs with its customers from the beginning of the season to the end, partly because of the short duration of the crop.  At this point in time, it appears the company will be selling organic cherries until about the third week of July, with the conventional fruit lasting a couple of weeks longer.

Blaine Markley, director of domestic sales, Rainier Fruit

Markley said there should be promotable volume of organic cherries in time to be shipped for Fourth of July promotions.  July should see very good volume of both conventional and organic fruit, with Rainier’s organic cherry crop to be fairly similar in size to last season.

Last year, about 1.7 million 20-pound cartons, or a bit less than seven percent of Washington cherries were certified organic.  According to statistics developed and released by Washington State University, there were about 3,000 acres of organic cherries being grown in 2018, an increase of 1,000 acres over the 2016 crop year.  In addition, WSU shows about 230 acres transitioning into organic production this year.

However, industry observers are not seeing that increase in the orchards.  Mac Riggan, director of marketing for Chelan Fresh Marketing, Chelan, WA, agreed with the California shipper that organic cherries are very difficult to grow.  He knows of several growers that have gone back to conventional production techniques after experimenting with organics.  Markley also surmised that this year’s increase in organic acreage will be offset by some growers moving back to conventional.

Mac Riggan, director of marketing, Chelan Fresh

Riggan said Chelan Fresh is slowly increasing its organic cherry acreage.  He said this year the firm will only have about 50 loads (50,000 cartons) of organic cherries, all of which are committed on programs to current customers.

While organic cherries will be hard to come by, there are some smaller growers in the cherry-producing regions that do grow organically and will have fruit.  A spokesperson for Organically Grown Company, a wholesaler based in Eugene, OR, revealed that the firm will be bringing in some organic cherries from Northern California in June and will also have organic cherries from Oregon in late July.