Increasing export markets for Washington apples

Todd Fryhover, President of the Washington Apple Commission has spent some time in China discussing the exporting of Washington apples to that market. He spent some time chatting with fruit growers about his observations.

FRYHOVER: As everybody is well aware the export markets today and in the future are going to play a very critical role in Washington’s future. We are going to grow more apples and export is going to play more and more of a role in our success and you can apply this model that I’m going to go through today to several markets including India and other opportunities but today I’ll talk about China.

Most everyone knows there are a lot of people who live in China and Fryhover says that is a big plus.

FRYHOVER: Obviously when we sit down and look at opportunity the first thing that comes to mind is population. There’s 1.3 billion people in China. It’s projected that there will be in the near future half a billion middle class consumers in China. What a tremendous opportunity for us in the State of Washington and for all the U.S. apples to really focus on this emerging and and critical market to Washington.

Fryhover says there is a shift in where people are living in China.

FRYHOVER: For the first year, just this year the Shandong Province was replaced by the Shanxi Province as the number one growing district in all of China. The Shandong is near the coast...where do most of the people live? Near the coast. So what we’re seeing is apple orchards having better opportunity as real estate properties.

Source: aginfo.net