Through June 7th, the industry shipped just over 1.8 million 20-pound boxes. "The good news is that early districts began harvest on the Bing variety this weekend, and growers are expecting higher volumes and packouts on what appears to be a very clean crop of our most prevalent variety."
To date, the largest shipping day (Saturday, June 6th) reached just 350,000 boxes. "We expect shipments to be over 400,000 boxes per day in the near future. It is important to note that during the shipping of the record 2014 crop, the industry shipped an average of 500,000 boxes for 32 days straight. In short, we have a great deal of cherries on the way. Our NWCG Field Estimation Team produced a Round #3 Projection of over 20-million boxes, including 2 million 15-pound boxes of Rainiers. The Crop Estimate indicates that we can continue to expect more fruit in June than ever before (up to 11 million boxes), which would allow for more volume to support U.S. promotions around Father’s Day and Independence Day celebrations. Demand both domestically and internationally remains high and is out-pacing supply." The industry estimate is tracking 563,000 boxes behind the Rd 3 estimate. "Again, this lag is based on most growers starting 3 or 4 days later than they expected, and weather related reduction of the early season crop."
In Store Radio
The In-Store Radio is now up and running in over 11,000 stores in the U.S. "The messages that change weekly have been running since June 1st and will continue into August. These are key reminders for consumers, many of whom may have seen the numerous media hits over the past few weeks, including WebMD, Huffington Post and Shape magazine, as well as a handful of news articles stretching from the New York to Arizona." The key Asian markets will begin full blown promotion programs starting this weekend and extend over the next six weeks.
