Whereas the brand new yr represents a contemporary begin to many, for the apple business it’s a continuation of the crop yr set in movement at harvest.
So, throughout a webinar on Dec. 19, it’s becoming that Chris Gerlach, the vp of insights and analytics for the U.S. Apple Affiliation, took the chance to look again on the 2024 harvest season and the way the crop quantity and motion developments may affect the yr to come back.
One key takeaway: 2023 quantity was an vital a part of the 2024 harvest season.
“4 out of 10 apples we have now bought this harvest season, 23 million bushels value, had been final season’s crop, attempting to get it out the door,” Gerlach stated.
That unusually giant overlap — following the file 2023 harvest — explains why 2024 crop motion seemed to be off to a sluggish begin, he stated.
“In August, Washington was holding 30 p.c greater than the earlier yr,” he stated. Now, all however possibly 2 million bushels appear to have moved, he added. “That’s excellent news.”
Whenever you take a look at apple motion from each the outdated and new crops, the pattern is off to a robust begin, he stated.
Gerlach expects to see an analogous “lengthy tail” — stretching the crop over 15 months — with the 2024 crop, which additionally got here in bigger than anticipated. USApple introduced a 260-million-bushel crop estimate in August, however now Gerlach places it round 280 million bushels. That’s not very far off of 2023’s file crop of 289 million bushels.
Due to improved orchard and warehouse practices, extra fruit has the standard to maintain a protracted storage season, Gerlach stated. Mix that with extra yield per acre and a rise of 33,000 acres from 2017 to 2022, and it’s not stunning that the business is dealing with bigger crop volumes.
“We’re competing with ourselves from earlier years,” he stated.
However crucial story is that this: What are all these apples doing to costs? In the course of the 2023–24 crop yr (which runs Oct. 1 by means of Sept. 30) retail costs fell 15 p.c in comparison with the prior yr, Gerlach stated. This fall, July although November, retail costs went up 7 p.c. Hopefully, that pattern will proceed, he added.
He additionally shared some apple export information. Final crop yr, a Michigan-sized quantity of apples — or 47 million bushels, value $1.1 billion — was exported to Mexico and Canada.
“It’s actually vital, even if you’re not an exporter, as a result of each apple that goes offshore is one that you simply don’t should compete with,” Gerlach stated.
The India market presents a robust instance of the influence political resolution can have on the business. India was a $175 million marketplace for U.S. apples when retaliatory tariffs had been put in place in 2017, through the first Trump administration. That market shrank to only $1.4 million in exports in 2023, when the tariffs had been lifted. For the 2023–24 crop yr, the business despatched $42 million value of fruit to India.
However, the present costs for American apples in India — maybe a promotional effort on behalf of shippers attempting to lure again consumers — are unlikely to be worthwhile at current, he stated. “Reclaiming markets is tough and never at all times worthwhile,” Gerlach cautioned. •
—by Kate Prengaman
