Less than 1% of Washington’s raspberries go to the fresh market, says Gavin Willis, executive director of the grower-led Washington Red Raspberry Commission. Willis recently joined the “Top Producer” podcast to discuss some of the challenges facing the state’s raspberry growers.
Willis shares how specialized the Washington raspberry industry is, noting that “over 90% of the U.S. grown frozen market raspberries is coming out of a 10-mile radius around Lynden, Wash.
Willis says Washington growers have faced significant challenges, noting the “USDA released their 2024 data, and Washington was dead last in the country net farm profits for 2024 were minus $396 million.”
Willis says growers have faced a significant threat from Mexican imports, which directly impacts their profitability. He says, unlike the specialized varieties designated for processing that Washington growers cultivate, Mexican frozen puree imports are fresh market varieties.
“In the last six or seven years, what’s really ramped up has been underpriced imports coming in from other markets, really specifically from Mexico,” he says. “It’s not the same product. When you’re harvesting for fresh, you’re picking stuff early because you’re thinking about the shelf life. So, the flavor is different. It’s not as sweet. Different lower Brix. It’s not that same deep red color.”
Willis says brokers have chosen to pay fresh growers in Mexico to send culls to them for a nominal price instead of composting or dumping it to make frozen puree. Once that puree gets some beet juice for color and cane sugar to up the Brix, it’s hard for the consumer to tell.
“For the food processors, it’s tough to turn down 40% cheaper cost on one of your ingredients or inputs,” he says.
Willis says high minimum wages and overtime laws elevate already high production costs in the U.S., which face steep competition when Mexican imports are 40% lower than domestically-grown fruit.
Willis says the overtime regulations have caused growers to manage labor hours to be economically viable and saying it’s also been more difficult to get workers. While the industry doesn’t use a lot of H-2A workers, he says he could see more growers looking toward the program as many workers opt for states without strict overtime laws.
“They’re thinking, ‘Hey, I want to max out my hours and earn as much as I can during the harvest season,” he says. “You can go to Washington, where they’re going to tell you, ‘Hey, we can’t afford to keep paying you after 40-45 hours or you can go to Idaho and work 80 hours in a week.”
Willis says the Washington Raspberry Commission is looking to address import pressure during the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement review. He says Mexican growers benefit from lower labor and environmental compliance costs.
“There’s other specialty crops as well that are concerned more with seasonal imports from Mexico,” he says. “I think there’s probably some ways that we can holistically address some of those concerns, especially given the cost of production.”
