A good shipping season for All Fresh
A good shipping season for All Fresh
“We’ve had a good year so far” in shipping the Michigan apple crop, said Scott Swindeman in mid-December.
“Demand has been good,” he continued. “We are blessed to have some larger fruit. We have larger Galas, especially.”
Scott Swindeman in one of his apple orchards last July. He is a partner in the family business, Applewood Orchards, Inc., in Deerfield, MI.With a reduced availability of large sizes in Western apple production, the situation in Michigan is especially fortuitous, said Swindeman. He is vice president of both his family’s Applewood Orchards, Inc., located in Deerfield, MI, and the apple marketing agency All Fresh GPS, which is a partner with Market Fresh, located in Sparta, MI.
All Fresh began packing and shipping KIKU apples in mid-November and will be doing so until late March.
Applewood Orchards is the Midwest sub-licensee for KIKU-brand a proprietary apple. Columbia Fruit Packers and CMI in Wenatchee, WA, are the North American licensee of the KIKU and Kanzi-brand proprietary apples.
This shipping season Applewood Orchards has a “very limited” Kanzi supply, Swindeman indicated.
For All Fresh, Kanzi shipments were planned to begin in early 2016. Kanzi is “an apple that we didn’t want to push out into the market early. It needs time in storage for the best flavor profile. It improves with a little time in storage after harvest.”
Furthermore, Swindeman held back on shipping Kanzi’s because he said the company doesn’t want to “push too many new varieties at one time. The retailers have only so much shelf space.”
But he expects in the future to start shipping Kanzi about Dec. 1 “to take advantage of a little holiday business.”
In the Dec. 17 interview, Swindeman said, “prices have been respectable. It’s been a little bit draggy last week and this week. That is nothing unusual prior to Christmas. It will pick up after the first of the year. We have ads (with retailers) set for the first part of January. We will ship this crop until July. It’s been a smooth shipping season. We have been pleased. We’re just humming along!”
