The tart pie cherry market has a limited demand; people only eat so much per year. Growers will deliberately leave millions of pounds on the trees in order to not crash the price.
If we all ate more cherry pie, the problem would be solved
More cherry pie is the solution to many of life’s problems. Chocolate covered cherries is the solution to every problem.
Eat more pies? Heck, I love to eat both tart and sweet cherries fresh off the trees (or out of the bag), uncooked.
Eat more pies? Heck, I love to eat both tart and sweet cherries fresh off the trees (or out of the bag), uncooked.
At one point, the cranberry market was in the same boat. Very few people ate cranberries outside of Thanksgiving or Christmas. Then, someone got the idea to market cranberry juices, put dried cranberries in cereals, etc. The cranberry glut had a place to go.
The same can be done with tart cherries.
Which does raise a question: Since they could donate the cherries if the cherries were processed first, could they sell cherry products without it counting against their quota?
I never see fresh Michigan sweet cherries in the grocery store down here in southern Michigan. To keep the prices high, limit the supply and export them? I was wondering what happened to the peaches this year. Very limited in the store and no peach ice cream, which I was really looking forward to - the spring and summer were gorgeous, so what’s up with that? Too many peaches, so they didn’t get picked to keep the prices up? Not enough migrant labor to pick the fruit cuz now they don’t have to do that work any more???