The Wild Northwest Cherry Ride is Bucking Buyers Off

 

Hang on Trigger, the Lone Ranger is about to get bucked off.  Yep.. The chain store buyers should be livid. Why? Because Washington State Cherry shippers must have hired new help this year, some former Wall Street analysts to predict the crop size and maybe some former Fanny Mae housing appraisers to anticipate peak picking times. Why did Washington State shippers agree to some aggressive ad pricing? The reason was the 2009 crop was so huge.  In 2009, the Northwest cherry growers shipped 20 million boxes even though 26 million boxes hung on the tree. 

Anyone who saw the bad weather this May should have been able to predict that this crop would not be what the field staff predicted and the shippers should have been cancelling ads by June 7^th instead of leading the buyer on until the June 18^th to start giving back orders. As several sales people have told me, it is a disaster.

Right now shippers are giving back orders, making trucks wait for two and three days. It is ugly.  The bottom line is the export cherries and spot buyers are getting covered and many chain stores won’t have what they need for the coveted 4^th of July ad period. My suggestion is forget the 4^th of July ads in the future and sell the cherries when they are ready. We don’t need a holiday to move high quality cherries.