Northwest pear crop similar to 2021 volume, industry estimate projects
The initial industry projection for the 2022 Northwest pear crop is close to last year’s in volume, according to Kevin Moffitt, president and CEO of Pear Bureau Northwest.
The Pear Bureau Northwest was established in 1931 as a nonprofit marketing organization to promote, advertise and develop markets for fresh pears grown in Washington and Oregon. A federal marketing order was established in 1939 to promote and support Northwest pears, and pears from these two Northwest states are distributed under the USA Pears brand.
Sizing up the crop
Expected to be just over 16 million cartons, the 2022 Northwest pear crop is about 100,000 cartons, or 1% below last year’s volume and about 2% below the five-year average, Moffitt said.
“It was a very manageable crop last year and a good season for pears, good for the retailer and good for the grower,” Moffitt said. “This year is shaping up to be very similar.”
With some export markets struggling, the moderate-sized pear crop this year should be sufficient to meet domestic demand while still providing good returns to the grower, Moffitt said.
Mexico and Canada have been good export markets and that is expected to continue, Moffitt said.
Northwest pear marketers are still getting product into Brazil, India, the Middle East, and Central and South America, but volume is not as high as it was when the crops were larger, he said.
Another issue is that smaller-sized fruit that used to go to export is now marketed domestically in pouch bags.
“That has been very popular domestically,” he said, resulting in firmer prices and expanding sales in the domestic market. “That limits what is available to the export markets, as well.”
Fruit size
Bartlett harvest was underway but was running a week to two weeks behind last year’s timing, Moffitt said.
The later timing works out well in the market because the California pear crop had normal timing, which allowed California shippers to clean up their supply earlier, Moffitt said.
Shipments of bartlett and starkrimson pears will ramp up in September, and the bosc pear harvest will begin in September, increasing by October.
Comice pear harvest will start in October, a bit earlier than d’anjous, he said
Shipments of d’anjou pears, both red and green, will begin in a limited way in October; shippers must meet certain pressure requirements (maximum 13 pounds pressure) for d’anjous to be shipped before Nov. 1.
“All the pears will be ramping up and, by November, we should have all the varieties on the shelf,” Moffitt said.
Perhaps peaking at size 90 this season, average pear sizing could be down a size from a year ago, primarily because of cool weather during pollination, Moffitt said.
The cool weather likely slowed down cell division in fruit, thus limiting the size profile somewhat, he said. Still, there should be a good range of sizes for the domestic market. Some of that smaller fruit will end up in pouch bags in the U.S. market and another part of it will be sold in export markets.
Organic fruit
The percentage of the Northwest fruit crop that is organic continues to grow, Moffitt said. For the 2021 crop year, organics accounted for about 9% or 10% of the crop, whereas organic volume this year will represent about 11% of the crop.
Whereas some organic shippers have opted out of the Northwest Pears/USA Pears assessment for marketing and promotion, organic shippers still have to pay for research and administration of the marketing order.
“We have a few shippers that opt out of organics, but the majority of the organic pears are supported and promoted by the Pear Bureau Northwest,” Moffitt said.
Some Northwest organic pears are sold into Canada, and Taiwan will take a limited volume of organic fruit, Moffitt said. Europe is not an active market for U.S. conventional or organic pears, in large part because of excessive regulation of trade by the European Union, he said.
