The Washington Apple Commission shared in March that its president, Todd Fryhover, would retire at the end of this year after an 18-year stint with the organization.
Fryhover joined The Packer for a “Tip of the Iceberg” podcast episode to talk about his career, the future of the apple industry and more.
Fryhover said pursuing a career in the apple industry was an easy decision growing up in eastern Washington. He started in the industry at age 12, and he said it was a natural progression to join the tree fruit industry after college graduation.
“This is the thing that I’ve known my whole life, and the thing that I love,” Fryhover said. “The nice thing about this industry is it’s not about the product necessarily. It’s about the people that make the product, and that’s the thing that’s made this career so nice.”
Fryhover has seen the apple industry evolve over the years, and he said labor is still a major challenge for growers. However, a particular challenge that impacts the Washington Apple Commission’s work is trade and access to international markets.
“Washington exports about a third of all their products in over 60 countries, so if we just start from there, that’s somewhere around 30 [million] to 35 million bushels,” he said. “We are heavily dependent [on trade]. Being on the West Coast, we’re close to the ports of Seattle and Tacoma, and Asia is just right around the border. Exports are very critical for us.”
Fryhover said apple exports have taken a hit in the past eight years without trade barrier relief.
“If I go back and look at the last two administrations, we’ve had no help on trade and trade barrier relief,” he said. “No free trade agreements at all. No bilateral agreements at all. We’re pretty much on our own.”
Fryhover said the Washington Apple Commission turned its focus to the home court, Canada and Mexico, where new varieties like Cosmic Crisp and Honeycrisp are making big impacts in the export market.
“In Canada, they have the willingness to pay more money for our product,” he said. “The consumers in Mexico are phenomenal, and we can ship you know between 10 [million] and 15 million bushels there every year.”
But he said the great eating experience the Washington apple industry provides can be a selling point to get into new and emerging markets. Fryhover said the Washington Apple Commission also looks toward new and emerging markets in Vietnam and Taiwan. He said while new varieties are definitely of interest in the domestic market as well as Canada, it’s often the state’s red delicious that gets the conversation started.
“In the international market, there’s nothing more iconic than a red delicious,” he said. “Red delicious is differentiable, it’s clearly a Washington product, it gets us in the door, so we’re never going to lose sight of mainstream varieties like red delicious.”
Each international market is different, and the Washington Apple Commission works with its retailers to help them understand the different opportunities the Washington Apple Industry may provide. Fryhover said before the COVID-19 pandemic, consumer demos played an important role, but now social media plays a huge role in connecting the consumer to the portfolio of apples available from the state.
“Every market is unique unto itself,” he said. “It has a different characteristic as far as taste and flavor profile that they want. Our job is to understand that, and then when we do understand that, [determine] how do we work with retailers and importers to develop strategies to get those consumers to be able to choose our products and taste.”
Listen to the full podcast episode by clicking on the video player above.
