This comes amidst an early start on organic California cherries this season. On organics, cherries and stone fruit are between 14 to 21 days early this year. “Our cherry deal out of Brentwood generally doesn’t start until May 1st and he started shipping in the middle of April, so we received our last Brentwood cherries this weekend,” says Abendroth, noting that following Brentwood, cherries will start to come out of both Lodi and The Delta in California. “The earliness of everything is a challenge. When cherries come on so early, a lot of these crops are susceptible to the springtime rains and we had rains on the back end of the springtime.”

Heat and fruit quality
Though, that heat has positively influenced quality. While sugar develops with the heat units, those early heat units–which were followed by cooler temperatures–meant good-tasting fruit.

As for organic cherry demand, it has been steady with prices higher on the front end of the California cherry deal. However more recently prices have steadied and are firm with less than $100/box for larger fruit down to $45 for smaller 12-row fruit.

How pricing develops from here will largely depend on how much fruit ends up in the marketplace from those rain-affected areas. “We should see some Rainiers come on, though reports are still coming in out of the field so we’ll see what all of this means as the week progresses,” says Abendroth, noting that it began the season shipping organic Tiogas, followed by organic Hazel and this weekend, the organic Coral Champagne variety begin shipping.

More early summer fruit starts
One challenge with the early start is competition from other summer fruit from California at retail. “It’s very interesting. We’ve never really had so many summer crops come on all in the same two week period,” says Abendroth, adding that while cherries and stone fruit are early this year, table grapes–which have been slow to start in the past few years–are on time this year.

Also seeing an early start this year are California melons. “So we’re seeing this onslaught of seasonal crops with no spacing in between them. You will have to be thoughtful and considerate of how many first to market items are actually going to make the retail basket,” he says. “How do you buy into that if you’re a wholesaler or a retailer? It looks like people are interested in a little bit of everything.”

Looking ahead, the industry continues to work on finding the right price to move product. “There’s not a lot of product out there to really drive some super retail attractive price points. We may see a bit of price relief when Washington comes on,” Abendroth says. Washington is anticipated to begin on time for organic cherries which is the end of May or beginning of June. That on-time start following California’s early start means there may be a small gap in the marketplace as the regions transition.

Source: Fresh Plaza