With Chilean cherry shipments to the United States in full swing, total export volumes are expected to drop this year due to challenging growing conditions during the winter. 

"The beginning of the season was impacted by weather issues during the Chilean winter, with heavy rain that affected the earlier varieties," Evan Myers, managing director of Forever Fresh tells FreshFruitPortal.com.

During December, due to the reduction of early varieties, around 95% of cherries going from Chile to the U.S. were sent through air transport, where usually the air deal winds down towards the middle of December when the first marine containers come in. 

"Supplies have been down," says Myers. "Shipments to the U.S. this year overall will be around 30% down from Chile compared to last year."

Last season, Chile shipped around 3.3 million boxes of cherries to the U.S. So far this season, around 1.8 million boxes have arrived, and the total projection for this season is about 2.3 million. 

Delayed shipments, but good size and quality

"Volumes to the U.S. are lighter and some of the delays out of Chile are not helping, but overall the quality has been nice and the fruit sizing has been a lot better. The supply right now is steady," says Myers.

The peak of shipments out of Chile occurs between weeks 51, 52, and 1, so the majority of the volume is expected from now until the last week of January. 

Positives of the season

Compared to last season, where the season was extremely concentrated and almost all the fruit shipped in 3 weeks, Myers says they expect to have fruit shipped through weeks 5 and 6, meaning supply will be available well into February.

"This will hopefully allow some retailers to catch up on the lost December sales," says Myers. 

Regarding restrictions in the Panama Canal, Myers says they have not seen any considerable delays yet. 

U.S. market supply

Pricing is affected by volume, "so if we are down 30%, pricing will reflect that."

"This year is the first one in many years where the Chilean industry will be down overall for global cherry exports which is difficult to comprehend because if you start to look at all the new plantings coming into production in Chile, they should be growing exponentially even with some weather issues,” says Myers.

Forever Fresh and future outlook

Regardless of the drop in overall volume from Chile, Myers indicates that Forever Fresh's volumes will be very similar to those of last year. 

"Our growers/owners in Chile have been heavily invested in the U.S. market for the past decade. They understand the importance of the North American market. I know even though this is a down year, in the coming years we will see more volumes coming," he adds.

With new plantings in Chile and the increase in consumption in the U.S., Myers is confident that supplies will increase in years to come. 

"Everybody likes cherries, and U.S. retailers love to promote them. We saw last year, with the concentration of food coming at once, that we have the ability and the willingness to move through the volume," says Myers.