Posts Tagged “Washington apple harvest”
by Columbia Marketing International (CMI)
Wenatchee, WA – Despite some of the earliest shipments on record, a smaller Washington apple harvest is driving tighter supplies and higher prices—particularly on larger-sized fruit and managed varieties. The result has been slower sales on many traditional varieties as supermarkets look to fill shelves with high demand new crop apples like Honeycrisp and Ambrosia.
Washington State apple shipments through November 2nd are 19.3% below the same period in 2014, but nearly 9% higher than two years ago. Early season predictions of smaller-sized fruit and supply reductions, particularly in Gala, Red Delicious and Golden Delicious are proving to be accurate.
Apple category growth continues to be propelled by the newer managed varieties and brands. The overall decline in apple category performance was offset by double digit sales increases among many emerging varieties. Honeycrisp, Pink Lady, Ambrosia™ Sweetango and KIKU® brand apples all posted strong sales increases over last year for the four-week September start-up period.
Some traditional popular apples showed significant sales declines. Gala (-8.0%), Red Delicious (-16.9%), Golden Delicious (-12.1%) and McIntosh (-9.9) all lost sales dollars in September compared to the same period last year.
Don Patella, Regional Marketing Director for CMI, noted that McIntosh sales dropped by nearly 10% year over year despite having one of the lower retail price points in the category. Conversely, Ambrosia had the largest sales increase in the category while selling at roughly $2.40 per pound, one of the higher retail prices of any apple in the month of September.
There have been nearly 19.6 million boxes of the 2015-16 crop of Washington apples shipped as of November 1st. This represents 16.5 percent of the projected 118.4 million boxes of fruit harvested. Meanwhile, Chilean citrus imports continue to grow.
The amount shipped thus far at this time a year ago is more than the 15.5 percent shipped at this point on the 2013 crop, which was of a similar size of 115 million boxes. The harvest of the 2015-16 apple crop began earlier this year and progressed quickly. The Washington apple shipping estimate is likely to change as growers get a firmer handle on the total crop size.
Washington apple shipments – grossing about $6800 to New York City.
Chilean Citrus Imports
Chile shipped nearly 204,000 tons of Navels, lemons and easy peelers (clementines and Mandarins) globally, with 165,000 tons, or 81 percent, coming to the United States and Canada between May and October 2015.
Total citrus exports from Chile climbed 30 percent over the previous season. Concerning global Chilean citrus exports, easy peelers represented 37 percent, oranges 33 percent and lemons 30 percent. The largest increase in terms of shipping volumes vs. last season corresponded to late Mandarins (57 percent), followed by lemons (43 percent), oranges (18 percent) and then clementines (11 percent).
The most impressive growth was with Mandarins, as North America volume skyrocketed to 42,124 tons from 27,354 tons — an increase of 54 percent.
Observers foresee 20 percent annual growth in combined volume of clementines and Mandarins for at least the next three years, so total volume will soon exceed 100,000 tons.