Economist reflects on 50 years observing Washington apple industry

Economist Desmond O'Rourke has penned a book about the changes in the apple industry over the past 50 years.

The 277-page memoir, titled "Tree Fruit Trade: An Agricultural Economist Reviews Fifty Years of Washington State's Key Orchard Crops," is available on Amazon.com.

In the book, O'Rourke provides an autobiographical sketch of his unlikely path from a rural village in north Ireland to Pullman, Wash. O’Rourke began a 30-year career with Washington State University in 1970 as a marketing economist.

In 1994, O’Rourke set up a private company called Belrose Inc. to facilitate consulting and research work on tree fruit issues.

The book chronicles the changes he witnessed in the apple industry since he arrived.

“When I began to work with the industry in 1970, it was mostly small growers and smaller packers, probably about 100 packers,” he said in a recent interview with The Packer. At that time, most of the business of selling apples was done by telephone, and the big retailers in the U.S. were A&P and Safeway.

Today, O’Rourke said there is a whole new cast of players in the retail industry. At the farm level, O'Rourke said perhaps 80% of the apple packout in Washington is controlled by 10 firms or so, and more and more of those firms are controlled by outside corporations.

However, the number of marketers in Washington may be near an equilibrium, he said.

“I think a lot depends on what the preference of the folks like Walmart, Kroger, and Costco is,” he said.  

O’Rourke said some retailers don’t want to be overly dependent on a single supplier. Each of the major retailers selects four or five primary marketers, which he said creates a “little bit of dancing” from one retailer to the next for the marketers.

The book also covers how greater regulation by the Environmental Protection Agency and the Food and Drug Administration has influenced the industry and added costs to domestic growers.

The emergence of the organic apple market is also chronicled, as well as the rising sustainability expectations from retailers.

O’Rourke also writes about what characteristics contribute to successful managed or club varieties, and what growers can expect with the rapidly growing Cosmic Crisp variety.

Ultimately, O’Rourke celebrates his long association with the tree fruit industry and its leaders.

"I continue to be in awe of the courage, tenacity, and flexibility of the many men and women that have helped the Washington state fruit industry become a world leader,” he writes in the book.