Northwest Cherry Growers Continues Focus On New Markets, Expansion

Thanks to the pandemic, record heat and drought the last two years have been challenging for many growers across the Pacific Northwest. Add on top of that the bottlenecks we’ve seen at the west coast ports, making it more challenging to ship products. But one sector that hasn’t seen the big hit from the port issue, is the local cherry industry. B.J. Thurlby, president of the Northwest Cherry Growers, said they’re fortunate in that very little of their exports to China is sent by sea.

“The good news, the glass is half full answer to that is, we actually fly 90% of our cherries and we’ve, at the Fruit Commission, we have worked with a couple of different airline groups, and we’ve helped the industry out in recent years by helping, talking some people into trying freighters.”

But despite that, Thurlby cautions it won’t be easy moving forward.

“We expect our exports to be down a little bit. We were down this year, you know, traditionally we’ve been in that 35%-30% range, and we were right at 30%, and last year we were right at 28%. So, between the tariff situation we’ve gotten a couple of countries in Asia and the freight situation, it’s just a scary deal.”

Thurlby said one of their priorities at Cherry Growers Northwest is broadening their market options, which becomes even more important during challenging times.

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