Big buyer won't be makeing purchase this year

The market for sweet cherries may have soured, but the tart cherry harvest appears to be “sweet,” according to county growers and processors.

Sensient Technologies, one of the biggest buyers of Michigan sweet cherries, will not be buying any fruit this year. That leaves some 10 million pounds of light sweets, used for maraschino cherries, with no where to go.

“Brine is the easiest form to store fruit in,” said fruit grower and emeritus MSU extension director James V. Bardenhagen. “That makes it easy to build up an inventory.”

Of the 52 million pounds of sweet cherries produced in Michigan, 37 to 38 million go for “light brine.”

The glut of sweet brine cherries can also be attributed to developments on the West Coast. Growers in Washington, California and Oregon have been planting and producing large volumes of sweets for the fresh market. Packing houses take cherries with any noticeable defects and offer them to the maraschino industry.

Gray and Co., which is contracted to process fruit into “briners” for Cherry Growers, Inc., is taking fruit from those growers with which they had under contract. Williamsburg Receiving is taking sweets “under consignment.”

Leelanau Fruit is also “taking on” more sweets from growers, but not enough to make a dent in the market.

“We’re taking on additional growers, but not enough to absorb the void Sensient has created,” Leelanau Fruit owner Glenn LaCross said. “That’s one-third of the briners in Michigan. That has left growers in a tough situation.”

A market price of about 19 cents per pound for premium sweets has left growers wondering whether to harvest or shake fruit on the ground.

Nikki Rothwell, director of the Northwest Michigan Horticultural Research Station, believes most briners, the harvest of which is nearing completion, will “find a home” this year. She’s even more enthused about prospects for tart cherries which in some locales are reaching peak harvest.

“The quality of fruit is excellent,” Rothwell said, noting that unseasonably warm temperatures last month compressed the season.

Welcomed rain and cooler temperatures in the past week sized and firmed up the Montmorencies, which by nature can be soft.

“They don’t harvest well in warm temperatures so the cooler temps are better for the fruit (quality) and more comfortable for those harvesting them,” Rothwell said.

Some growers were in the midst of the tart harvest last week. But others have a way to go.

“We’ve got two hard weeks to go on tarts before we’re over the hump,” LaCross said.