Posts Tagged “U.S. apple shipments”

The trade group U.S. Apple Association of Falls Church, VA held a webinar following the December 1st update on the amount of apples remaining in storages.

Chris Gerlach, USApple’s director of industry analytics, said the total figure was about 190 million bushels — 140 million of those bushels are in fresh apples while 51 million remain in processing.

“The last time we had a total holding of this size in November it was the November 2014-15 season with 188 million bushels — 144 million bushels in fresh and 44 million bushels in processing,” Gerlach said. “For the most part, we’re right on par with the production with the fresh crop there.”

Gerlach said one deviation from the 2014-15 figures is the number of apples in processing this season. He suspected with a down market last year, processors used the opportunity to fill holdings then.

“It’s a big year,” said Gerlach, who added that fresh apple holdings are closer to 40% greater than a year ago.

Washington state contributes the majority the year-over-year growth. The state is up 38% over last season, which is equivalent to 42 million bushels and about 90% of total growth in the U.S.

New York state’s 15 million bushels is 10% of the national growth; its crop is up 44% year over year.

Michigan shows a 6% decrease year over year, but at 12 million bushels, it is down only 1 million bushels from 2022 and still above the state’s five-year average.

“These states account for about 94% of remaining storages,” Gerlach said.

Honeycrisp, gala, red delicious, granny smith and fuji make up 76% of the total apple holdings. Gerlach said USApple pulled Envy out of the “other varieties” category to track its growth individually moving forward. Apple growers harvested 4.2 million bushels of Envy apples this season.

Cosmic Crisp experienced a 41% year-over-year growth with 9.5 million bushels harvested this year.

Gerlach noted that there are two mindsets for how this year’s crop moved through before December. He said if using the figures set in August by the USDA, it looks like a sluggish movement of apples in storage. However, Gerlach said he suspects the crop is higher than projected and therefore moving at a better rate.

He said the figures in the USApple movement tracker shows a 17.8-million-bushel differential between November and December, up 81% year over year, with varieties coming in and out of storage. Gerlach suspects with apples coming in and going out of storage, that figure could be higher. Washington state moved 16.3 million bushels in November, which is up 97% year over year.

Gerlach said by comparison, using the 2014-15 season, data from the tracker shows only 14 million bushels for November. So, apple movement this season tracks considerably higher.

“With the 18-million-bushel figure, we are exceeding the net movement in the November 2014 time frame,” he said. “There’s no reason to think we’re dragging our heels.”

Gerlach noted net movement of varieties show gala moving 4.4 million bushels, up 74% year over year. Honeycrisp movement is up 105% at 3.7 million bushels. Movement of granny smith apples is up 204% at 3 million bushels. Red delicious rounds out the top four with 2.1 million bushels, up 53%.

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The total number of U.S. fresh apples in storage remaining to be shipped as of Nov. 1 is up 32.4% over a year ago.

 U.S. Apple Association  of Falls Church, VA recently released its November 2023 USAppleTracker, which indicates the United States industry is holding 190.7 million bushels of apples. This compares to November 2022’s total of 144 million bushels. This is 19.8% above the five-year average for Nov. 1.

Washington by far had the greatest state fresh apple holdings, with 152.3 million as of Nov. 1, 2023. New York is second with 14.9 million bushels, and Michigan is a close third, with 12.3 million. Pennsylvania has 5.4 million bushels. Oregon reports 942,000 bushels and no other state is close to one million.

By volume, Honeycrisp is the largest fresh apple variety in storage this November, with 30.2 million bushels. Gala is a close second, at 29.2 million bushels and Red Delicious is third at 26.4 million. Granny Smith and Fuji register 22.5 million and 18.3 million, respectively.

In November 2022, U.S. fresh apple holdings were 103.0 million bushels. In November 2021, the total was 115.6 million.

Processing apple holdings totaled 50.6 million bushels, 23.2 percent more than last year on November 1.

Fresh apple holdings in February 2023 totaled 140.2 million bushels, 36.1% more than the inventories reported for November 2022. 

This report captures more than 95% of the national storage capacity. The statistics are compiled by USApple.

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The USDA has forecast U.S. apple total production for 2023 at 9.91 billion pounds, up 1% from 2022.

In Washington state, better growing conditions are leading to an expected 9% increase in production from the previous year, according to the USDA’s August production report. Washington’s apple output is estimated at 6.7 billion pounds, up from 6.14 billion pounds last season.

In New York state, a mild winter that weakened the cold hardiness of the apple crop followed by a very warm spring has caused the expected production to be the lowest since 2012, according to the USDA. New York apple production is estimated at 1.1 billion pounds, down 19% from 1.355 billion pounds a year ago.

In Michigan, there were no widespread spring frost damage events, and July precipitation enhanced fruit sizing, according to the USDA. Michigan apple production is estimated by the USDA at 1.15 billion pounds, 15% less than 1.36 billion pounds in 2022.

Early-season variety harvesting has begun in southern Michigan, according to the report.

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U.S. Apple shipments were lagging at the start of the season during the past month or so, but overall volume is expected to be similar to 2021-2022.

But it’s going to be a little different for the 2022-2023 season simply because Washington represents 75 to 80 percent of fresh apple production in the United States. The growing conditions in Washington state are a critical factor in total US apple production for the country.

Honeybear Marketing LLC of Brewster, WA reports a difficult growing season in Washington this year due to a cool spring and a spotty bloom.

The vertically integrated, multi-region apple grower and packer reports the Honeycrisp and Gala varieties have been hit hardest and the state’s fresh apple production is expected to be down from 120 million bushels last year to a projected 105, to 110 million this year.

The Midwest and Northeast make up the remainder of US apple production. Each region has a share of about 10-15 percent in total US production. Last year was a tough year for the Midwest, only harvesting about 60 percent of a normal crop due to frost. This year however, both Michigan in the Midwest and New York in the Northeast are expecting a full crop. All in all, total US fresh apple production is expected to be similar to last year.

A colder spring is caused a late start with the apple harvest, which was delayed a couple of weeks and didn’t really get underway until around Labor Day for the early varieties. The result has been shipping gap, especially for varieties like Gala and Fuji. Some retailers have reported empty selves until the new crop to arrive in stores.

With many regions being out of fruit before new harvest arrives, retailers and processors are looking to the Southern Hemisphere for imported supplies. In fact further reliance on dual hemisphere supplies are predicted to last into the spring and summer of 2023 because the overall domestic crop volume for this year has not much different from last year.

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According to a USApple analysis of Agriculture Department data, total U.S. apple production for the 2022/23 CY will be more than 10.7 billion pounds or 255 million bushels. This represents a 2.7% increase compared to last year’s production figure and is 3.5% less than the five-year production average.

 USApple Director of Industry Analytics Chris Gerlach noted these figures are more comprehensive than USDA data, which only look at the top seven apple-producing states. “We’ve analyzed the production from states outside of the top seven and added that back to USDA’s figure,” explained Gerlach.

At the varietal level, Gala is expected to retain the top spot with almost 46 million bushels produced, accounting for around 18% of the U.S. apple market. Rounding out the top five are Red Delicious (34 m bu), Fuji (26 m bu), Honeycrisp (25 m bu) and Granny Smith (24 m bu).”

In general, the varieties on the rise include Honeycrisp, Pink Lady/Cripps Pink and Cosmic Crisp. Fuji, Granny Smith and Rome varieties have remained relatively consistent compared to 2017/18 production volumes. Varieties on the decline include Golden Delicious, Gala and Red Delicious.

“On the positive side, Honeycrisp production has increased by 48% or 8 million bushels in the past five years,” said Gerlach. “Conversely, Red Delicious decreased by 41% or 24 million bushels during the same period.”

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Remaining U.S. fresh apples remaining to be shipped on November 1 were 12 percent less than the same time last year, according to the first storage report of the season from the U.S. Apple Association of Falls Church, VA.

Fresh apple remaining in storage for shipping on November 1 were 117.5 million (42-pound) cartons, 12 percent less than the inventories the same time a year ago.

Processing holdings were 45 million cartons, 6 percent less than the same time last year. Total apples in storage on November 1 were 162.5 million cartons, 10 percent less than a year ago and 4 percent below the 5-year average for that date. 

The U.S. Apple fresh inventories on November 1, with percent change compared with a year ago:

• Gala: 24.2 million cartons, down 15 percent ; and
• Red delicious: 21.17 million cartons, down 24 percent;
• Honeycrisp: 15.34 million cartons, up 3.6 percent;
• Granny smith: 13.37 million cartons, down 15 percent;
• Golden delicious: 5.01 million cartons, down 38 percent.
• Cosmic Crisp: 1.631 million cartons, up 533 percent.

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By U.S. Apple Association

USApple calculates the USDA’s August estimate of 253.6 million bushels (down 3 percent from the 2019 crop) would be the 9th largest crop since the government department began reporting apple production in the 1940s.

The 2019 apple crop was the 6th largest crop in history, said the U.S. Apple Association recently at the organization’s 125^th Annual Crop and Outlook Marketing Conference. Apple exports also rebounded during the past year, with a 15 percent increase in volume.

At 262 million (42lb units) bushels, the 2019 apple crop was up 8 percent in volume from 2018.

The industry continued the trend to adapt to consumer preferences by increasing production of Honeycrisp, which is expected to rise by 12 percent, moving it ahead of Granny Smith and Fuji into third place in national production.

“With the 2018 crop, Red Delicious lost the position it had held for decades as the largest volume variety to Gala,” said USApple Director of Regulatory and Industry Affairs Mark Seetin. “Projections for the current crop are that Gala will continue to expand its edge over Red Delicious and will remain the largest volume variety produced.” 

The 2020 top five produced apple varieties are: 1) Gala 2) Red Delicious 3) Honeycrisp 4) Granny Smith and 5) Fuji.

The top 3 varieties (Gala, Red Delicious and Honeycrisp) comprise 48 percent of all production. The top five varieties (adding Granny Smith and Fuji) comprise 67 percent. 

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U.S. apple shipments from fresh and processed production is estimated for 2020 to be 253.6 million (42-pound) cartons, down from 262.3 million cartons in 2019, according to the USDA.

Forecast apple production this season is expected to be lower in all states except Oregon.

Late winter weather in Michigan delayed development of spring buds and some orchards there suffered a severe freeze in early May.

The USDA’s 2020 estimates for fresh and processed apples, in 42-pound cartons, with percent change from the 2019 crop:

• California: 6.42 million cartons, down 11.5 percent;
• Michigan: 21.9 million cartons, down 2.8 percent;
• New York: 30.9 million cartons, down 1.6 percent;
• Oregon: 4.28 million cartons, up 20 percent;
• Pennsylvania: 10 million cartons, down 17.2 percent;
• Virginia: 3.8 million cartons, 15.8 percent; and
• Washington: 176.2 million cartons, down 2.7 percent.

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Total apples remaining to be shipped from U.S. storages has remained consistently high so far this year, holding steady at 15 percent up from a year ago-on-year.,

As of April 1st in the U.S., there were 81.7 million bushels of apples in storage, up from 71.3 million last year. This year’s figure is also 8 percent above the five-year average.

Fresh apples in storage specifically were registered at 58.7 million, which is also 15 percent up last year. But it is only fractionally higher than the 2017 figure for April of 57.7 million.

Apples for processing in storage came in at 23 million bushels, up 12 percent from a year ago, and slightly below the 23.5 million registered at the same point in the 2017 season.

Breaking down fresh apples in storage remaining to shipped by varieties as of April 1:

Fuji is at 7.7m bushels (6.2m in 2019, 7.2m in 2018) Gala is at 12.3m bushels (9.8m in 2019, 10.7m in 2018) Golden Delicious is at 4.3m bushels (2.3m in 2019, 3.8m in 2018) Granny Smith is at 8m bushels (6m in 2019, 10.1m in 2018) Honeycrisp is at 4.5m bushels (3.8m in 2019, 3.3m in 2018) Pink Lady/Cripps Pink is at 2.9m bushels (2.9m in 2019, 3.3m in 2018) Red Delicious is at 13.6m bushels (15m in 2019, 15.6m in 2018)

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