While the new year represents a fresh start to many, for the apple industry it’s a continuation of the crop year set in motion at harvest.
So, during a webinar on Dec. 19, it’s fitting that Chris Gerlach, the vice president of insights and analytics for the U.S. Apple Association, took the opportunity to look back at the 2024 harvest season and how the crop volume and movement trends could influence the year to come.
One key takeaway: 2023 volume was an important part of the 2024 harvest season.
“Four out of 10 apples we have sold this harvest season, 23 million bushels worth, were last season’s crop, trying to get it out the door,” Gerlach said.
That unusually large overlap — following the record 2023 harvest — explains why 2024 crop movement appeared to be off to a slow start, he said.
“In August, Washington was holding 30 percent more than the previous year,” he said. Now, all but maybe 2 million bushels seem to have moved, he added. “That’s good news.”
When you look at apple movement from both the old and new crops, the trend is off to a strong start, he said.
Gerlach expects to see a similar “long tail” — stretching the crop over 15 months — with the 2024 crop, which also came in larger than expected. USApple announced a 260-million-bushel crop estimate in August, but now Gerlach puts it around 280 million bushels. That’s not very far off of 2023’s record crop of 289 million bushels.
Thanks to improved orchard and warehouse practices, more fruit has the quality to sustain a long storage season, Gerlach said. Combine that with more yield per acre and an increase of 33,000 acres from 2017 to 2022, and it’s not surprising that the industry is facing larger crop volumes.
“We are competing with ourselves from previous years,” he said.
But the most important story is this: What are all these apples doing to prices? During the 2023–24 crop year (which runs Oct. 1 through Sept. 30) retail prices fell 15 percent compared to the prior year, Gerlach said. This fall, July though November, retail prices went up 7 percent. Hopefully, that trend will continue, he added.
He also shared some apple export data. Last crop year, a Michigan-sized volume of apples — or 47 million bushels, worth $1.1 billion — was exported to Mexico and Canada.
“It’s really important, even if you are not an exporter, because every apple that goes offshore is one that you don’t have to compete with,” Gerlach said.
The India market offers a strong example of the impact political decision can have on the industry. India was a $175 million market for U.S. apples when retaliatory tariffs were put in place in 2017, during the first Trump administration. That market shrank to just $1.4 million in exports in 2023, when the tariffs were lifted. For the 2023–24 crop year, the industry sent $42 million worth of fruit to India.
But, the current prices for American apples in India — perhaps a promotional effort on behalf of shippers trying to lure back buyers — are unlikely to be profitable at present, he said. “Reclaiming markets is difficult and not always profitable,” Gerlach cautioned. •
—by Kate Prengaman
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