Promotable volume is one phrase used by several shippers when describing this year’s California cherry crop. Coming on the heels of last year’s weather-plagued crop of around 3 million cartons, this year shippers are expecting a crop of at least twice that size.

“We think it’s going to reach 6 million to 6.5 million cartons,” said Mike Jameson, director of Marketing for Morada Produce Co. LP in Linden, CA. “It’s not a big, big crop but it has very good potential and it’s much bigger than last year. It’s a very promotable crop.”

Daniel Moznett, director of marketing for Grower Direct Marketing LLC, Stockton, CA, expects the first fruit to hit the market around April 20 and for California to continue shipping for about seven weeks through the first week of June. Others predicted similar timing but thought the crop could last until June 15.

Maurice Cameron, global sales manager of the Flavor Tree Fruit Co. in Hanford, CA, said Mother Nature has played a little bit of a trick on the growing districts this season. While the trees in the far southern reaches of the San Joaquin Valley usually start producing fruit a few days before those located in the center of the valley, that isn’t the case this year. “Our Central Valley fruit is going to come off first,” he noted. “We expect to start by April 25 in the Central Valley and then work our way down to our southern orchards a few days later.”

He said cherries need a certain amount of chilling hours to set a good crop and the Central Valley orchards achieved that sooner than the southern orchards this year. It was precisely the lack of enough chill hours last year that played a negative role in reducing the 2014 crop to the very low numbers it achieved.

While a crop in the 6 million-carton range isn’t a record by any means, it will give shippers a good amount of volume to sell, especially during the peak of the season.

Keith Wilson, president of King Fresh Produce LLC in Dinuba, CA, said the peak will occur in mid-May, as is usually the case. “We see the crop as being a couple of days early and it could go to about June 15,” he said.

Jameson said the volume will build slowly through the end of April and into the first week of May. “By May 5-8, we should see much more volume coming out of the packing sheds that will start to hit the stores a week later.”

He expects most retailers will be promoting cherries around May 15 and continue through the rest of the month. “There should be good promotional pricing May 15-17.”

One unknown this year is how the export market will respond to the stronger dollar. “The strong dollar may curtail some exports,” said Wilson. “But with that said, we have very good demand and interest from Southeast Asia. Export sales typically command a premium so I just don’t know what the dollar will do to that this year.”

Jameson believes that the strong dollar will have a “significant impact especially in Japan.”

He said the dollar is about 20 percent stronger than it was a year ago, meaning the same dollar price will result in a 20 percent increase in the cost to a Japanese importer. On the other hand, he said the Korean market for California cherries has shown strong growth in recent years. “Last year, Korea surpassed Japan as our largest export market, excluding Canada. I think we will still see strong demand this year,” Jameson added.

Cherries have a relatively unique position in the marketplace as they one of the few items that has remained very seasonal. With global marketing, most items are now available 12 months of the year, but that really isn’t the case with cherries. Cameron said when California cherries hit the market in late April, it will be the first time in three months that cherries are on the retail shelf. He said retailers are excited to promote them and consumers are looking for them. “There has been a three month gap since New Zealand cherries were on the market,” he said. “We’ve been getting lots of inquiries from retailers wondering when we are going to start.”

Jameson said California cherries kick off the start of spring and the summer fruit deal and everyone looks forward to that. “Historically, cherries are a very good money maker [at retail] per square foot [of display space] so they are excited to promote them.”

And promotion is important, the Morada executive said cherries are an impulse buy with the majority of sales occurring because of the display.