Cherry cost skyrockets

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Becca Pensyl, left, 15, and Marissa Ingersoll, 18, assist a customer with cherries at an Edmondson Orchards booth on Thursday during the National Cherry Festival.

July 13, 2012

Cherry cost skyrockets

By Bill O'Brien bobrien@record-eagle.com The Record Eagle Fri Jul 13, 2012, 07:30 AM EDT

TRAVERSE CITY – This year’s cherry harvest offers a lesson in Economics 101: tight supply and high demand means buyers are paying a lot more for the region’s signature fruit.

Everyone - from major fruit processors to folks walking around the National Cherry Festival - has had to dig deeper to pay for cherries, thanks to a weather-ravaged crop. Processed cherry prices could touch $1.50 a pound this summer, 10 times the rate from three years ago.

But not many local growers stand to reap the bountiful prices. Most have almost nothing to sell.

“It’s a huge increase, but it doesn’t really mean anything in a way,” said Dennis Hoxsie, a fruit farmer and farm market owner in Acme Township. “There are just very, very few cherries.”

Cherry prices tracked a slow but steady incline since a bumper crop of close to 300 million pounds in 2009. Sales figures from the U.S. Department of Agriculture show growers earned paid about 15 cents a pound for processed tart cherries that year. There were so many, the region made national headlines when growers left their fruit in the orchards or dumped them along roads.

Growers received about 21 cents a pound in 2010 and about 30 cents in last year’s shorter harvest.

Sweet cherries, which are priced per ton, came in about 21 cents per pound for processed sweets in 2009, and rose to almost 39 cents a pound last year.

Cherries sold for fresh market consumption fetch higher prices, but most are sold for processing.

This year’s Michigan tart crop is estimated at just 5.5 million pounds, a staggering drop from 157 million pounds last year, so processors are scouring the planet to fill a growing U.S. consumer market that’s estimated at 260 million pounds annually.

Brent Bradley, vice president of sales and marketing at Graceland Fruit Inc. in Frankfort, expects his company to import cherries from far-flung places like Poland and Turkey to meet its production needs.

Bradley said fruit processors can work around the shortage by finding cherries elsewhere, or use other products that weren’t wiped out this spring.

But many farmers don’t have that option.

“I’m worried about our growers,” Bradley said. “The processors can kind of put a band-aid on things for a year, but our growers don’t have the ability to do that.”

Growers who will benefit from sky-high prices mainly are in the western U.S., where crops escaped spring weather damage. Washington growers expect a 27-million pound tart harvest, up nearly 30 percent from last year, while Utah production is forecast at 34 million pounds.

“They are in the right place at the right time, so to speak,” said Brian Mitchell, president and general manager of Cherry Grower’s fruit cooperative in Grawn.

The price for dried cherries already vaulted 35 to 40 percent, said Tom Berg, director of marketing at Shoreline Fruit. The Acme Township processor sells dried cherries directly to consumers in its Cherry Bay Orchards brands, as well as customers who use dried cherries in other products. He said a four-pound box now retails for $26 to $29.

Shoreline also plans to expand its geographical reach for cherries beyond northwest Michigan.

“Demand has grown over the past several years,” Berg said, adding it’s the third year in a row “with less than adequate supplies” of cherries.

He stopped short of advising consumers to stock up on dried cherries, but said supplies “will be tight and prices will reflect supply and demand.”

Cherry Festival patrons seemed to take higher prices in stride. Marissa Ingersoll, who worked the Edmondson’s Orchards cherry booth at the Open Space, said sales are strong, despite a $1 increase for fresh sweets to $5 a cup.

“A lot of the people are good about the price,” Ingersoll said. Most of the raised brows at her site came from locals who are used to cheap and plentiful cherries.

Festival-goers Glen and Alexandra Adamus of Livonia heard about the weather-damaged cherry crop, so higher prices didn’t surprise them.

“It’s a special thing, so we don’t mind paying a little more,” she said.

Record-Eagle features editor Jodee Taylor contributed to this report.