What to expect from New York’s apple crop
From
| 31 August 2023
Overview of apples from New York in the U.S. market, complemented by charts from Agronometrics. Original published on August 29, 2023.
Almost bordering the southern shore of Lake Ontario, family-owned Fowler Farms in Wolcott, N.Y., sat in a good spot to avoid most of the May frost that damaged some apple acreage.
The state could have 20% less volume this apple season compared with a year ago due to frost damage, said Austin Fowler, vice president of sales and marketing for Fowler Farms. But he estimated much less loss among his 2,200 acres of orchards.
“Fortunately for us, we’re pretty close to the lake and plant in higher ground,” Fowler said.
And last season, they had record production, mostly from newly planted acres coming to fruit.
“We should’ve had more this year, so we’re maybe down just a bit, maybe 5 to 10% from last year, which was a barn-buster crop,” he said.
And the 2022 apple season experienced some late-season weather, like hail, so some of what was picked didn’t make it to the warehouse.
The late May 2023 frost damaged enough New York orchards to drop this season’s production prediction for New York apples, but the prior year was such a boon that the five-year average is steady.
New York expects about 28 million bushels of apples this year, down by about 4 million bushels from last season, said Cynthia Haskins, president and CEO of New York Apple Association. The Fishers, N.Y.-based nonprofit association represents the state’s commercial apple growers.
Source: USDA Market News via Agronometrics.
(Agronometrics users can view this chart with live updates here)
New York is the second-largest apple-producing state in the country, although a fraction of what’s produced far west in the top-ranking apple state of Washington.
The U.S. produced and shipped by truck 4.5 billion pounds of conventionally grown apples last season, according to the USDA.
Of that, 2.6 billion pounds of apples were shipped domestically from Washington, 378.3 million pounds were shipped from New York, 310.9 million were from Michigan and 192.8 million were from the Appalachia region in the eastern and northeastern U.S.
Apple harvest begins in the Hudson Valley and immediate surrounding areas about the third week of August, followed by central and western New York a week or two later, and then northeastern New York.
This year’s temperamental weather has Lancaster, Pa.-based Hess Bros. Fruit Co. glad for its geographically diverse family of growers, said Ryan Hess, director of grower services. He expects the company’s total supply to be consistent with last year’s crop.
“We’ve long partnered with great growers in Maryland, Virginia, New York and, of course, Pennsylvania,” Hess said. “This allows us to vary our harvest windows as we move from south to north — as well as mitigate our risk from weather-related catastrophe.”
Apple season is huge for Tops Friendly Markets, said Justin Rowe, fruit category manager.
Headquartered in Williamsville, N.Y., Tops operates two distribution facilities in Lancaster and West Seneca, N.Y., along with 149 supermarkets, including five run by franchisees under the Tops banner.
“We really hammer it home that they are literally grown within 20 minutes of our [distribution center], so it doesn’t get more local than that,” Rowe said. “I do think it makes a difference, especially when we get to fall — when we’re able to say it’s New York apples.”
VARIETIES AND AVAILABILITY
For many retailers, Honeycrisp is the new staple in the market, Fowler said.
More than 15 years ago, Fowler Farms “went all in” on planting this variety, becoming one of largest Honeycrisp growers in the Northeast.
And this can be a hard variety to grow, with bull and bear years, so they spent a lot of time on research.
“It’s one of the most expensive apples because it costs a lot per acre to grow and pack-outs are pretty poor,” Fowler said.
SweeTango is growing in market share, and that’ll be Fowler Farms’ first apple to ship, possibly in the second week of September. Sometimes early-season apples don’t taste as good as later season varieties, but the SweeTango “actually tastes excellent,” Fowler said. “People try it, and then they re-buy it.”
Another variety that has a lot of growth is SnapDragon. Like SweeTango, demand has become greater than supply, “which is good, but we also want to give people what they want,” Fowler said.
Rave apples are harvested starting in late July and go to market beginning in early August. They are grown by Stemilt in Washington state, Applewood Fresh in Michigan and Yes! Apples in New York state. Rave is a natural cross between Honeycrisp and the MonArk apple from Arkansas. It comes from the University of Minnesota’s apple breeding program that developed Honeycrisp.
“Our growers have been rapidly transitioning away from older, traditional varieties and toward high-eating-quality fruit that satisfies the palates of the modern consumer,” said Andy Figart, president of Hess Bros. Fruit Co.
Hess is gradually expanding its WildTwist apple variety program, which shines in spring and summer, said Mattie Leid, senior sales manager at Hess. As acreage continues to mature, Hess anticipates WildTwist availability to double over the coming seasons.
“Those that have carried the apple for the past three years have seen continual growth, and those that are just getting to know the variety are amazed by the enthusiastic consumer response,” Leid said.
Specifically in New York, major early season varieties start in August with ginger gold and paula red, followed by jonamac and zestar. Other varieties — such as mcintosh, gala, Honeycrisp, cortland, macoun, jonagold and empire — are typically ready in early September through October, depending on the location. Other varieties, including red delicious, crispin, golden delicious, fuji, cameo, rome and braeburn, will soon follow.
New York-grown SweeTango apples are ready to harvest in September, and SnapDragon and New York-grown EverCrisp apple varieties are harvested from late September to October.
“I remember going through my first apple season on this desk,” said Rowe, who’s worked as fruit category manager for five years of his 25 years at Tops Friendly Markets. “It gets harder and harder every year to decide what the lineup is going to look like.”
Last year, Tops made some big changes in its bulk program, transitioning away from some legacy varieties such as red delicious, cortland and empire, to make way for newer proprietary varieties, whether that be from Washington or New York. The program will be tweaked this year from notes on what worked well and what didn’t last year, he said.
New York-grown apples do really well when packaged.
The News in Charts is a collection of stories from the industry complemented by charts from Agronometrics to help better tell their story.
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