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Apples

canadmos

canadmos

Cake Tease
May 29, 2011
20,513
19,523
Canaderp
I like a good apple. Its a self contained, sugary and juicy snack that can be stuffed in a sack and enjoyed without worry (mostly).

But, someone educate me, why do some apples cost $1.99 per pound and others are $3.99 per pound? Let's not even get into the cost of "organic" apples.

What makes one apple literally double the cost of another, from the same country?? More water and time to grow?

Pink Lady's and Honeycrisp are notoriously expensive here, which sucks as they are god damn tasty. I do not prefer cheap Macintosh, those big thick red skinned deals or anything green.
 
KenW449

KenW449

Thanos did nothing wrong
Jun 13, 2017
2,704
329
Floating down the whiskey river...
It depends on the use for the apple. Some are better for baking while others are better for eating, and more yet better for distilling. Large, sweet apples will cost more than smaller, bitter apples. How long it takes the tree to grow and produce decent apples and what the season for the apple is. Insects are another issue. The more an apple is desirable for insects, the harder it is to keep them away. Once an apple has signs of intruders, they cant be sold, same for when they fall on the ground.

Idk what the fuck im talking about but it seems plausible.
 
boostindoubles

boostindoubles

Nacho Libre
Mar 16, 2004
7,880
6,178
Yakistan
canadmos said:
Oh hey @boostindoubles :busted:
Click to expand...
Basically, it's a little complicated.

Apple pricing reflects supply and demand plus some other factors. When there aren't many available then they can fetch higher prices. While if the market is bloated the price comes down. Other apples are branded and trademarked. These varieties are grown short in order to get the higher prices. Apple growers pick into bins which hold roughly 800 lbs of apples. Last year we picked Braeburns and grossed $40/bin. That is 5 cents per pound. We pay $25 just to the pickers. We really need to be getting $150+ to break even/make $$. The apples were nice but the market for them was shit. Braeburn don't store well. It is being pulled out by everyone in order to make room for new apples like Cosmic Crisp. That is one of the problems. The apple market isn't growing and to bring in higher value apples you have to push other apples off the shelves. A lot of the old Gala blocks are getting hammered. Red Delicious and Goldens went through it over the last 15 years. Braeburns also.

Apples are graded out on packing lines by size and color. The modern lines have camera's that can detect internal defects and reject fruit they know has water core. It's all pretty fancy. There can be several grades, depending on the quality of the lot being run and more than 15 individual sizes can be graded out. Out of the 15 sizes, maybe 3-4 of them are really valuable. Alot of the smaller or larger fruit have to be down graded and sold at lower prices or sold into the processing market for apple sauce or juice or ? There are lots of niche markets and other strange things which can be a good deal. Red Delicious don't have a strong North American market but they still kill it in Asia. A large portion of Washington Red's ship to Asia. Or take Jazz, a traditionally small apple. It has been on the market for 15 years maybe, and all the sales and marketing strategies have developed around pushing smaller apples. It has been largely successful. Two growing seasons ago, we had a long growing cycle and the Jazz apples were large. Even though the larger apples were really nice, all the marketing and avenues for sales were targeted around small apples. So the small apples were worth more and sold out quickly. The large fruit sat longer and was sold at lower prices. Goldens were pulled out en masse over the last 15 years. It's funny because the market finally balanced out and last season Goldens were pulling as much as $350/bin.

Honeycrisp has had strong demand for decades now. It really has been a savior for many apple growers. High quality organic Honeycrisp can return $1000/bin. New strains have been developed which color better and store better. I think it's market share will change in the next few years as more new apples are introduced. Pink Lady is another apple that is seeing growing demand and new strains which color better and pick earlier.

20180226_204134.jpg
 
Westy

Westy

the teste
Nov 22, 2002
54,442
20,247
Sleazattle
TLDR

I just assume the cheaper apples are the ones boostindoubles rubs on his balls.



Or are those the more expensive ones?
 
boostindoubles

boostindoubles

Nacho Libre
Mar 16, 2004
7,880
6,178
Yakistan
Your right, the ones are better than the other ones. But only if the other ones aren't there. If the other ones are the wrong size, the whole system goes back to the other ones.
 
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jdcamb

jdcamb

Tool Time!
Feb 17, 2002
19,839
8,438
Nowhere Man!
People have tried to involve me in this apple shit. "For Cider" Since I am more of a Corn Whiskey guy. I cannot get behind that. Honey crisps are delicious all year long. They are my favorite fruit along with Mineola Oranges and those big ass Pink Grapefruits... I believe if I eat Grapefruit and Cream of Wheat and plain yogurt for breakfast I will have a good ride generally...
 
jdcamb

jdcamb

Tool Time!
Feb 17, 2002
19,839
8,438
Nowhere Man!
Most people do not buy fruit for daily consumption. I am not sure why. Most folks do not have fruit in their fridges. How can this be?
 
jdcamb

jdcamb

Tool Time!
Feb 17, 2002
19,839
8,438
Nowhere Man!
rideit said:
I eat more pineapple than a Samoan. A pound or two per week.
Click to expand...
Just had some Pineapple juice and Moonshine cocktails. Fucking delish... Pomegranate Juice and Vodka purified through a Brita Filter. Comes out clear and be careful if you try this...
 
Jm_

Jm_

sled dog's bollocks
Jan 14, 2002
18,998
9,659
AK
I grew up in a part of Nor-Cal known as "Apple Hill". In the summers, I worked at an apple-ranch for a few seasons. In this region, there were a bunch of apple-ranches, which would grow local varieties and offer all sorts of goodies like fresh apple pies and and pastries in the season. Kind of a german/bavarian theme too, at around 4000' in the Sierra foothills. The area would get pretty jam-packed in apple-season, lots of people driving up for the weekend, etc. The apples you could get would blow your mind too, around 3-4 times bigger than anything you saw in the supermarket and super-crisp. My favorite was red-delicious, but the stuff usually available in a supermarket was a far-cry from what I knew to be representative of the type. The stuff you usually see in the store is nothing like what you can get from a mature tree. I miss that.
 
jdcamb

jdcamb

Tool Time!
Feb 17, 2002
19,839
8,438
Nowhere Man!
Went to the Public Market with the purpose of getting cheap Apples. There is no such thing as cheap fruit in March in Western NY. I couldn't find any peppers or tomatoes. Shitty Bananas is all I got.... We went from having a tonne of good citrus to none....
 
pnj

pnj

Turbo Monkey till the fat lady sings
Aug 14, 2002
4,696
40
seattle
20% tariff for apples going into mexico.

So... mexicans come to USA, pick apples and then we ship 'em to mexico?

..... what is going on ?
 
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