Getting Fruit to the World

Getting Fruit to the World.  I’m Greg Martin with today’s Fruit Grower Report.

A very large chunk of the Washington State fruit industry is in the form of exports and it is important for those countries to see and taste the awesome apples, pears and more that we grow here. Todd Fryhover, President of the Washington Apple Commission is just back from one such trip.

FRYHOVER: The Washington Apple Commission along with several industry members attended Fruitlogistica in Berlin, Germany. It is the world’s largest produce convention. The Washington Apple Commission has a booth at the Fruitlogistica venue where we go out and invite people to come in and learn more about apples and we try to match people who have interest in the importation of apple with our shipper back here in Washington.

He says unfortunately not everyone around the world has the chance to try our fruit.

FRYHOVER: In addition there are several shippers who attend and use our booth as a meeting point to meet with their existing customers and look to make new relationships with new customers in certain regions of the world. It’s well attended from the European side as well as the Indian importers, Russian importers and then fragments of several other places as well.

Expenses for trips like these are built into federal programs according to Fryhover.

FRYHOVER: Fruitlogistica is what we call a mappable expense. It is through the Market Access Program so in fact most – probably 85 or 90% of the money that is spent actually comes from the federal government.

That’s today’s Fruit Grower Report. I’m Greg Martin on the Northwest Ag Information Network.