In its cherry program, The Flavor Tree Fruit Co. LLC, exclusive sales agent for Warmerdam Packing in Hanford, CA, is best known for its proprietary Sequoia cherry variety. The company also has other varieties, but the focus is on proprietary varieties, according to Maurice Cameron, managing partner.

“Predominantly, our trend for our company is to be in proprietary varietals,” Cameron said. Currently “we have a new one coming up the pipeline.” It has been planted and is expected to be in production in sufficient numbers by next year to be introduced to the marketplace.

It has not yet been named, he said.

Cherries on the packingline at Warmerdam Packing in Hanford, CA. Flavor Tree is Warmerdam’s exclusive sales agent.Bringing a new cherry variety into commercial production is a long process. “We have watched the variety over many years” to assure it has the desired characteristics. “Now we have our first 18 acres” planted and close to coming into production, Cameron said. It is an early red cherry that will be “in the same program with the Sequoia cherry but it will precede the Sequoia by a few days.”

The variety was, of course, selected because of its desirable characteristics. “Essentially everything we plant improves on whatever is already in the ground,” Cameron said.

As for the current season, “it is going to be very interesting because we are crossing paths that we have never crossed before” with the earliness of the season being “unprecedented,” he said March 31. “Most of our fruit comes from Fresno County south, and at this stage we are looking at … harvesting around Easter time, possibly slightly before Easter.”

Besides being early, the 2014 crop looks to be much lighter than last year’s crop, at least on the early varieties, “possibly on par with 2012,” he said. “For us as a company, we will probably be down about 35 percent” from 2013.

The early season will give “a lot more time” to sell the crop, he said. “Typically, we are starting out the first of May and running through Memorial Day.” This year, with the harvest starting at Easter, “we will have less fruit to sell over a much longer period of time.”

The earliness should provide more opportunity in certain markets, particularly in export markets, he said. “For instance, typically we start with volume in early May. We can go to Europe before the Spanish crop starts, and we have somewhat of a window.” This year, however, “we will have a much bigger window because we are starting that much earlier.”

Japan should also be an interesting situation, he said. Japan has a holiday week the first week in May, and generally, Flavor Tree’s cherries start arriving in Japan that week. “This will be the first year we will have cherry arrivals 10 days before their holiday, so stores are going to want to keep cherries on shelves for the holiday.”

It is going to be “a lot of fun” and “maybe a little bit of a challenge” as well as a learning process seeing how markets will react to the earlier availability of the fruit, Cameron said. But he anticipates that “it should be a very good market.”

Domestically, retailers are also excited about starting early, he said. Especially for West Coast retailers, “there may be an opportunity to have cherries on their shelf for Easter, which is something that doesn’t really happen,” ordinarily.

Also, “we should be able to have cherries on the shelf at somewhat reasonable pricing” for Mother’s Day, he said. “It is pretty interesting — a lot of new territory for us.”