John Rice, who is in charge of marketing for Rice Fruit Company of Gardners, Pennsylvania, asks, “Who’s going to sell them? And who’s going to buy them? And at what price?”
Speaking to growers during the International Fruit Tree Association annual conference in Halifax, Nova Scotia, in February, Rice traced the apple production curve since he began working the sales office at Rice Fruit in 1975. That year, he said, there was a record U.S. crop of 175 million bushels—160 million was the record until then.
In 2014, the country again produced an all-time record crop, now in excess of 275 million bushels. And apple prices have dropped considerably. But there are some different factors in the market now, and Rice is not sure what they all mean.
First, he does think growers have planted too many apples, and he pointed a particular spotlight at Washington State, which has increased production the most, both in terms of bushels and as a percentage of the total U.S. crop.
While there has been some growth in production in New York, Michigan, and Pennsylvania, Washington’s production has gone from 52 million boxes in 1976 to nearly 152 million boxes last year, and a surprising amount of that growth has taken place in just the last five years. Two-thirds of all U.S. apples are now grown in Washington State.
