The US cherry import deal in Australia has been something of a mixed bag so far this year. Inconsistent quality and availability through the season has caused headaches for importers, and led to off-spec fruit hitting the wholesale market at low prices.
Despite patchy weather problems in the US throughout the season – early rain damage in California and recent heat issues in Washington – fruit at the high end of the quality spectrum has been some of the best traders have ever seen from North America.
But alongside the premium fruit, lower quality, out of spec cherries have been hitting the wholesale market as well and creating two-speed demand.
“What you had in some instances was Stemilt or Prima Frutta cherries selling for A$10 a kg, and then you had other brands selling for A$5 a kg,” Chris Antico of the N&A Group’s import division Pacific Fruit Brokers told Produce Plus. “The market has been all over the place.”
Australian retailers and consumers are used to very fresh, high spec locally grown cherries, and the inconsistent US quality this year has meant higher-volume programmes have been difficult to manage, particularly in the early season when Californian fruit was in short supply.
“We didn’t do much with California, which is our usual plan,” said Neil Barker of BGP International. “They had rain damage and the main supply hasn’t been fumigating well.”
But from other quarters of the market the view is quite positive, particularly now imports have shifted to cherries from Washington.
“The numbers have been good, and the quality hasn’t been too bad,” explained Garth Lockyer of Valleyfresh Australia. “The weather’s pretty warm up there now, and the rain didn’t help. But they got over that.”
Lockyer said Valleyfresh has also has brought in a record high volume of white-fleshed Rainier cherries. Because there is only limited Australian domestic production of white-fleshed cherries, marketing the fruit has largely been a matter of consumer education.
“People are getting used to the Rainiers being a bit sweeter, a bit different, but a bit more expensive,” Lockyer detailed. Valleyfresh has been selling their white-fleshed cherries in clamshell packs to avoid damage to the delicate varieties, and retailers have been offering them for under A$10 per kg, a similar price point to imported red-fleshed cherries.
US cherries have also been doing well in the West Australian market, Produce Plus heard from traders there. WA consumers punched above their weight in US cherry sales last year, despite the state only granting access to the fruit halfway through the season.
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