During 2022, the growing season was not easy for many cherry growing regions in the northern hemisphere. For example, in North America, some regions lost up to 50% of the their normal production due to frost and heavy rains.
At the same time in grower countries of Europe, like Italy and Spain, they also suffered important losses due to cold and rain.
Meanwhile, in Oceania there was a good season and in Chile exports have increased year after year, keeping its place as the largest cherry exporter, according to the digital media elproductor.com.
In Spain, the season started with a week’s delay, because of the cold impact and the rains at the end of winter and beginning of spring. In general, cherry production was lower in the 2021-2022 season.
In regards to Italy, there was a good cherry demand, but much lower than that of years past.
Additionally, in North America there was 50% less production in some areas, due to the combination of snow and frost that damaged the buds and also caused delays in area production, generating concern in regards to financial sustainability of the sector, because of the high production and logistics costs.
On the other hand, in Oceania there was a good cherry season, according to what a New Zealand grower commented to “El Productor”. “Halfway through the season we had one day and a half of strong rain. Thirty-five millimeters of rain fell in some 20 hours and figure we lost about 30 tons. If that had not happened we would have had a really excellent year, but even so we reached 90 tons. It would have been great had it not happened, but nothing much could be done to avoid it. Other than that, the quality of the fruit was very good. We had a light summer, and the quality of the fruit was as high as it normally is, but we lost many of the large calibre ones during this period.”
Finally, Chile remained by far the largest cherry exporter in the world, as was shown in export numbers, since 2010 official data showed around 44 thousand tons, in 2015 there was an increase, reaching 83,500 tons, while in the 2021-22, the numbers rose to 356,385 tons, according to data from “elProductor.com”.
