CHICAGO — Chris Gerlach, vice president of insights and analytics for the U.S. Apple Association (USApple), took the stage at the organization’s annual Outlook conference with a presentation he called, “Optimism on Uneven Ground.”
Gerlach detailed some of the challenges facing growers this season, including unprecedented weather events and also highlighted some of the dynamics going into the 2026-27 crop year. The USApple Outlook coincides with the USDA’s first estimated crop size for the upcoming season.
USDA has indicated the 2026-27 crop will be down 7% from the previous season and down 3% from the five-year production average.
State-by-State Crop Estimates and Regional Shifts
In previous years, industry representatives would come together in Chicago at Outlook to adjust the state USDA estimates based on what they’re seeing in their regions. Michigan, Oregon and Washington elected not to continue this tradition.
Instead, Michigan indicated the USDA estimate of 25 million bushels is likely too low, but said sizing will be back to average. On the variety front, fuji and red delicious will be lighter, some blocks of honeycrisp had return bloom issues and gala looks very strong.
The USDA estimates Washington’s crop will be around 176.2 million bushels, which is down 2%. Washington representatives chose not to participate in the USDA’s annual crop forecast, a decision driven by recent market volatility and a preference to rely on actual storage numbers later in the season rather than early estimates. State officials only indicated this year’s quality looks good and sizing might be up. For varieties, gala and Envy look good, some honeycrisp suffered from return bloom and fuji looks light.
Pennsylvania representatives estimate the crop may be down about 50% with an estimate of 5.8 million bushels due to the once-in-a-generation freeze event. State representatives expect significant processing culls, but with ample rainfall sizing will be good on the fruit that is left. Honeycrisp, golden delicious and fujis look fine while gala, granny smith and red delicious may be challenging.
New York representative growers expect around 2 million bushels which is down about 19%, in part due to freeze damage in the southern part of the state. Western New York might be down slightly while the Champlain Valley looks good. This spring return bloom suffered due to last year’s drought. But rainfall this year has sizing looking above average. Red delicious, pink lady, fuji and idared hit the hardest during the freeze. State representatives also expect a higher number of apples to be processed.
Virginia, which faced a down year in 2025, expects to come in around 1.3 million bushels, down 63% from 2025 due to the April freeze event and subsequent hail events. While growers in the state have shifted more production to the fresh market, this year looks like they will divert a significant portion of the crop to processing.
California looks to be down 11% year-over-year at around 4 million bushels. Representatives say warm temperatures impacted fruit set. Gala will have good quality but lower yields. The overall crop will have good color and pressure and normal sizing. Granny smiths look to be a normal crop but fuji and pink lady sizing will be up despite lower production.
USApple did not publish an adjusted national crop average because some states chose to adjust the USDA estimate while others did not.
“USApple will be taking the position that we will neither endorse nor condemn the USDA figure,” Gerlach says.
Gerlach did indicate that the first full look at the crop will likely be in USApple’s December storage report, as Washington will not provide a storage report in October or November and Michigan will begin its figures in November as well.
“Our first look in Washington will be the December storage report where they’re starting to already get a sense of how things are running down the line,” he says. “In December, we’ll be back rolling with everybody participating.”
National Production Trends and Variety Dynamics
In Gerlach’s presentation, he discussed some of the previous crop years, indicating that the U.S. apple industry likely hit peak production with the 2023-24 season of around 292 million bushels. Gerlach detailed how the freeze in 2012 helped spur development with low interest rates and new orchards going in.
“Acreage increased over that decade; 10% or 26,000 acres were put in over that 10-year span,” he says. “We finally slowed that trend and we’re back heading back down.”
Gerlach says growers in the last 2 to 3 years have pulled about 5,500 acres out of production with about 3,000 acres removed year-over-year in Washington.
“Probably not the most productive acreage or the newest acreage but at least it is a little bit of the footprint coming out.”
Gala, Gerlach says, is still the most widely grown variety, with about 16% of the U.S. total acreage, followed by red delicious, granny smith, honeycrisp, Cosmic Crisp, pink lady, golden delicious and other varieties.
Nationwide, honeycrisp (27 million bushels), granny smith (30 million bushels) and Cosmic Crisp (20 million bushels) are trending upward in production. Although, Gerlach notes the USDA year-over-year forecasts for Cosmic Crisp to be flat.
“There are some growth trajectories for Cosmic Crisp that have it going up, but probably not at the same rate that it once had,” Gerlach says. “I don’t know if this is the true peak of that original planting.”
Fuji, Gerlach says, looks to be flat in production with gala, red delicious and golden delicious all with downward production trends.
Storage Holdings and Movement Realities
Fresh apple holdings going into the new season, Gerlach says, is down 13% year-over-year, with a recalibration that happened in Washington storages from November to December when some apples diverted to processing. Processing apples nationwide are up 11% year-over-year as of Aug. 1.
This year, Gerlach says, as of June 1, Cosmic Crisp was the most prevalent variety in storage. But, Gerlach says that inventory is intended to last through roughly November or December, when sales of the new crop begin.
“Cosmic Crisps are definitely here to stay,” he says. “They’re now full on a 12-month variety or more.”
He also says Cosmic Crisp has offered growers good pricing, and as production continues to grow, prices remain high. And the crop has expanded from roughly 650,000 bushels a month in sales to 1.5 million bushels.
“We’re seeing this virtuous cycle now with increased supply, increased demand, increased prices, increased supply again,” he says. “I don’t know when and if that music is going to stop.”
But, Gerlach says total crop movement for the 2025-26 season at no point has equaled the amount of fresh production, which is down from 83% of utilization in 2021 and now sits at about 78% as of Aug. 1.
Apple Pricing Recovery vs. Rising Input Costs
Gerlach then looked at some of the challenges facing apple growers and this includes pricing. Following a multi-year slump that saw tray pack prices fall by 28% and take a further 8% hit after a mid-2025 collapse, Gerlach says the market is beginning to turn around. A recent 16% price recovery has brought fresh optimism to the sector.
“Things are actually not as dire as they once were on the pricing side,” he says.
Gerlach says recent apple market trends closely track supply shortages and surpluses, with shorter crops driving significant price gains for gala, golden delicious, and red delicious. The latter surging as supplies sits 40% below last year’s levels. Honeycrisp prices suffered a severe late-summer collapse in 2025 on early oversupply expectations, though they have since recalibrated to rebound near $50 a box as inventories tightened.
Highlighting a 2024 WSU cost of production report, Gerlach says the break-even operational costs for honeycrisp were around $43.50 a box and granny smith and gala around $30 a box. While honeycrisp yields mixed profitability and galas hold close to break-even, granny smith prices have persistently lagged below production costs, putting grower returns under severe pressure, despite Gerlach identifying it as a variety with production increases.
A bright spot on the processing side is juice prices are up 329% and peeler prices are up 65% for Washington growers. Juice apple prices are up for Eastern growers, too, up 94%.
“Continued strength in that market is going to impact people’s decisions this year about how and where to send their fruit,” Gerlach says.
Regarding demand curves, Gerlach cited a 25-year demand analysis which shows apple production climbing from 87 million bushels to 120 million bushels, but inflation-adjusted box prices have fallen back to $28 after peaking near $39 a decade ago.
“It begs the question: if we were happy to produce at $27 a box 25 years ago, why is $28 a box inflation-adjusted is no good?” Gerlach says. “That’s because we haven’t factored in the cost side of the equation, of course. Labor costs 25 years ago and the cost of every other input has gone way up and so it’s squeezing those margins, squeezing that return.”
International Competitors and Global Trade Pressures
November 2025, Gerlach says, was the highest single month for apple movement, with growers exporting about 5.5 million to 6 million bushels that month, which was about 30% of the total movement for that month.
But exports are down about 40% from the high of 2017 and 2018, and this is due to the significant loss of the Indian market. Exports reached the lowest point in 2022-23 season.
“We’ve done a very good job bouncing back,” Gerlach says. “We’re up 40%. But that’s the trick with percentages. You can get the same percentage growth but not get back to where you were. We’re still about 8 million bushels below where we were at our peak. So still some work to do in some of those new markets”
Mexico is the U.S.’s largest export destination (39%), followed by Canada (39%), Taiwan (7%), Vietnam (5%), the Dominican Republic (3%) and other countries which make up about 27%. And while India is no longer in the top 5 export destinations, Gerlach says the apple industry has worked hard to build back the market. Gerlach says some of the negotiating tactics used by this current administration may help open new markets, but he says with USMCA, “We need to keep our eye on the prize and not ruin a good thing.”
“USMCA is hugely important,” Gerlach says. “We don’t want to see that go away or have any kind of India scenarios where we start going tit for tat and they retaliate against those things that they know will hurt us the most.”
In the global market, Gerlach says, China, the No. 1 apple producer, has aggressively pivoted toward premium fresh varieties and high-tech storage to go after the Southeast Asia market. While Gerlach says the USDA does not have an estimated crop size this year, growth is expected. Turkey, the No. 3 global producer, has recovered from a huge freeze and has a crop size expected around 245 million bushels and is a top competitor with the U.S. for the Indian market. Europe looks to be down 16% this year, with Poland down around 30%, which could open market opportunities for India and Egypt for U.S. growers. Canadian production looks to be down about 2% as British Columbia diverted irrigation to fight wildfires, causing some sizing issues. Mexican production looks to be down about 1%.
To sum up his presentation, Gerlach says, despite export growth, supply capacity remains high and continues to rise.
“Domestic demand is the missing piece,” he says. “Apples must do more to educate consumers. There’s the Eat More Apples campaign. I think we need to move the needle and make sure that we provide some runway for some folks that have been producing below the cost of production for a few years running. “
