Washington's apple crop came in at 130 million boxes. This final number is down from the earliest projections for the 2025 season, but still represents a solid, above-average volume overall. Movement of the crop has been steady but measured. Retail programs and export commitments absorbed a meaningful portion of early volume, which helped keep inventories manageable. While foodservice and wholesale demand has been consistent, buyers remain price-sensitive and cautious with forward commitments. "Overall, the Washington apple market is tightening more quickly than originally projected," says Randy Hartmann, President of Pacificpro. December Washington State Apple Association storage data reflected an additional reduction of approximately five million boxes versus early season projections, with Gala and Golden Delicious leading the way on reduced availability.
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Cosmic Crisp enters top 5
Movement, however, varies significantly by variety. Gala, Honeycrisp, and Cosmic Crisp continue to lead demand and move well across retail, foodservice, and export channels. Granny Smith and Fuji remain steady but are more price-driven and promotional in nature. "Some legacy varieties are seeing slower movement as buyers continue to concentrate on core, high-velocity SKUs," mentioned Hartmann. In terms of varieties, there is a slight change in the top 5 this year as Cosmic Crisp is entering at the cost of Fuji. In order of volume, the top includes Gala, Honeycrisp, Granny Smith, Red Delicious, and Cosmic Crisp. The primary shift continues to be the steady growth of Cosmic Crisp as it gains wider adoption across both retail and foodservice channels while some traditional varieties continue to gradually decline in overall share.
Tighter availability on smaller sizes
Sizing continues to skew one to two sizes larger than normal due to favorable growing conditions in spring and summer. This has significantly reduced the availability of foodservice and school sizes, particularly 100 – 175 count. Larger sizes that are used by retail on the other hand, are more readily available. This has created some imbalance in availability depending on customer specifications. Due to favorable growing conditions, fruit overall is cleaner and pushing into higher grades. As a result, shippers are packing most of the smaller fruit into retail bag programs and heavy-pack export programs that garner a higher price point than tray pack.
Healthy export demand
For high-color fruit and premium grades, export demand has been healthy. Certain international programs continue to pull meaningful volume out of the domestic pipeline, paying a premium over domestic markets, which has helped support overall market balance. This demand has put additional pressure on the lighter supplies and pricing of the smaller sized fruit. Currency dynamics and freight costs remain variables, but overall export activity has been constructive for the market.
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Pricing depends on sizing and variety
For those in-demand varieties and sizes, pricing has remained relatively firm. Altogether, higher packouts into premium grades, retail bag programs, and export channels have tightened availability for certain segments of the market. The most noticeable price movements in the past month have been with Gala and Golden Delicious strengthening in most grades. There's no extreme price volatility being witnessed and the market has held up, which is contrary to what many buyers expected early in the season.
Conventional versus organic
These above-mentioned trends apply to both conventional and organic apples, but organics remain tighter overall. "Organic supply is more sensitive to sizing, quality, and pack-out variability, and pricing has remained relatively strong," said Hartmann. Demand for organic apples continues to be consistent, especially among committed retail and foodservice programs. Organics account for approximately 15 percent of the overall Washington apple crop.
Decline in production of legacy varieties
In closing, Hartmann mentioned that despite a larger crop size, availability of the legacy varieties will likely decrease over time. "Although the crop size is on the larger end of the spectrum for the past ten years, the increased number of varieties, trademarked tree varieties, as well as pack types mean that each individual SKU (variety, grade, and size) will likely continue to trend downward over time on many of the legacy varieties." Many growers will continue to replace some legacy tree varieties that grow small, lower grade and lower price point fruit with new, lower-supply varieties that garner higher price points at retail. This will put pressure on availability and pricing. Nevertheless, these legacy varieties will continue to hold the largest overall percentage of the crop.
For more information:
Randy Hartmann
Pacificpro
Tel: (+1) 425-885-7200
[email protected]
www.pacprosales.com
