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organic marketing berries
Organic Berries Reap Rewards
Despite Growing Pains
Premium pricing meant
to balance higher costs
for growers, smaller yields.
IBY MATT OGG
t is fast becoming the norm for ber- ry growers to dedicate at least a por- tion of their farms to organic, but the practice is “not for the faint of heart” according to Gary Wishnatzki, own-
er of Plant City, FL-based Wish Farms.
It is a category often involving risk, higher costs and diminished yields. Climatic challenges make these issues even more pronounced in Florida, which has adopted organic cultivation
at a slower pace than other growing regions. For organic strawberries, the portion is 5% in the Sunshine State compared with 10% in California, while in blueberries the percentage is just 2.5% compared with the national sales
level (including imports) of 8.5%.
“Our climate is harder to produce organic
berries and be profitable at it, but our ship- pers want to make them available to their customers,” notes Sue Harrell, marketing
62 / MAY 2019 / PRODUCE BUSINESS
director at the Florida Strawberry Growers Association.
“Organic growers do incur more costs than conventional growers and cannot count on the same yields per acre, so it is important to receive a premium for the product to be economically feasible for the grower,” says Brittany Lee, president of the Florida Blue- berry Growers Association.
As far as blueberries are concerned, Ryan Lockman, logistics manager at Traverse City, MI-based North Bay Produce, estimates Florida still has more organic production than any other Eastern U.S. state.
“In Michigan, there’s very little organic production, and it’s because of our very humid
PHOTO COURTESY OF CALIFORNIA GIANT BERRY
climate, which is not very conducive to growing organically,” he says. “Georgia is also a very challenging area because of how humid it is.”
Wishnatzki says the yield of organic strawberries “just swings a lot harder than the conventional crop does when it cycles up or down,” but Florida’s timing during a short December-January window makes the wind- fall worth it.
“There are many years when we’re making more money on conventional fruit at lower market prices just because the production is so much better,” he says. “But on Florida organics, it’s a much bigger premium than you have during other times of the year when California is in production,” he says.
He adds organic blueberries from Florida also attract a healthy premium over conven- tional fruit in March and April, but the difference is far greater in strawberries.
The situation is totally different on the other side of the country. Cindy Jewell, marketing director at California Giant Berry in Watsonville, CA, says strawberries in general have undergone competitive pressures from other berries, and the effects have been felt on the organic side, too.