Cherry season is in full swing in the Pacific Northwest and this year is an important one for farm profitability. Two out of the last three years have been very challenging for producers as sweet cherry prices fell below the cost of harvest for some varieties in 2023 and again in 2025. Production costs have been increasing at the same time, putting extra pressure on farms. Anecdotally we’ve heard of some orchard acreage going unmanaged this year in The Dalles, and another bad year could be more than some farms can withstand.
While growers won’t know their exact marketable yields or the prices received for their fruit for several months, USDA AMS data on shipping point prices and volumes moved provide some information on the state of the market. Figure 1 shows shipped sweet cherry volume from AMS movement reports. The figure shows clearly that cherry volume is a couple of weeks early this year in both CA and the PNW. There was very little overlap between shipments from CA and the start of PNW volume, which contributed to low prices in 2023. Peak production in the PNW may have occurred last week but has not yet shown up in the AMS shipping reports, and it is not yet clear how overall harvested volume will compare to previous years.
The pricing picture for sweet cherries is concerning at this point in the season. There are no publicly available datasets that show full retail price averages, but the USDA-AMS releases national average prices observed in retail promotions for sweet cherries. Although these reports don’t show the full retail price picture, the promotional prices can be helpful for gauging annual patterns and to see where 2026 falls in comparison to recent years. Figure 2 below shows that after some volatility in May, 2026 promotional pricing is largely in line with 2025 over the last couple of weeks, and a bit higher than 2023 and 2024.
Farmers care more about the FOB or shipping point prices than the retail price because the FOB price is closer to what they actually get paid for their fruit. Figure 3 shows the shipping point prices from 2023 to June 2026 and shows that so far this year the shipping point prices are as low as the disastrous 2023 crop year. The cause for these low prices is not obvious based on these data.
The difference between retail prices and shipping point prices represents the amount of the consumer food dollar that goes to distributors, retailers, and shipping costs. Figure 4 shows that shipping point and retail prices mostly move in the same direction, but the dynamics can shift from year to year. There are some periods in which the promotional prices are very close to the reported FOB prices, indicating that after the cost of shipping, distributors and retailers might not be making money on cherries during their weekly promotions. At other times, the promotional retail prices are still significantly higher than the average shipping point prices. So far in June 2026, there is more than a $2 per pound difference between shipping point and advertised retail price, which is among the largest observed since 2021.
This is an early look at sweet cherry prices and volumes in Washington and Oregon. I’m sure that more will be written as the season unfolds, but it does not look like the strong year that PNW growers needed to return to profitability.
Tim
This is Gary Wade, Devon’s dad. I wanted to thank you and Ashley for gathering this information so we all have a better idea who is benefitting from our labor and inputs. This information is really important as we begin to address the structural changes needed to keep us in business.
Thanks, Gary Wade
Thanks for the note Gary – a lack of clear pricing information in the cherry (and pear) market is big challenge, as you know.
Thank you for reporting this disappointing data . Domestic retailers are not buying on the front end of the PNW crop. Area stores were bare of any volume and people in other areas were asking where are the cherries?? This is two years in a row !!
Thanks Mike. That’s an interesting observation. I wrote this up while traveling in Arizona for a conference. I stopped into a Safeway later that day and there was a small display of red cherries, at $4.99 per pound.