Moving into the next quarter of the Washington apple shipping season, the industry has continued to revise crop estimates downward, according to the Produce Alliance LLC of Chicago.
Current projections place the crop near 130 million boxes, compared to early-season expectations of 140 plus million boxes. The adjustment has largely been driven by lower-than-anticipated pack-out
percentages across several varieties, reducing the overall number of fresh market cartons available.
At this point, the crop is estimated to be roughly 8% smaller than last season, which has begun to
tighten the supply picture as the storage season progresses.
Sizing continues to be one of the primary challenges this season. The crop skewed larger overall, and
smaller sizes that were packed (113–175 ct) are being heavily directed into retail bag programs, which are currently paying a premium over traditional tray pack markets.
As a result, foodservice and wholesale channels are seeing tight availability on the smaller counts. Washington will continue to ship fruit from controlled atmosphere storage with good overall quality, but the combination of reduced pack-outs, smaller storage inventories, and strong retail bagdemand is expected to keep markets firm.