Apple Sales To Japan Turn Mushy After Strong Start

Washington apple sales to Japan have slowed to a crawl after the flurry of excitement that greeted the end of Japan’s 23-year ban on such imports.

Industry officials are reassessing their future there.

“We have our work cut out for us in the years to come,” said Steve Lutz, president of the Washington Apple Commission based in Wenatchee. “The conventional wisdom among people not familiar with the market was once it was open, the hard work was done.

“My observation is there is a lot of hard work, market development work, ahead. It won’t be as easy as showing up,” said Lutz, who met with Japanese importers and retailers during a recent trip to Asia.

Shippers participating in the Japan-export program have sold nearly 480,000 42-pound boxes of apples to Japan since the trade opened Jan. 9.

But sales over the past month trickled to 80,000 boxes, and shipments will fall short of the 700,000-box goal the industry hoped to meet by April 1.

Industry officials cited a number of possible reasons for the slowdown, including a competitive response from Japanese growers and a marketing approach by Japanese traders that was not what state growers had expected.

Japanese growers lowered prices for their apples when the imports arrived, eliminating some of the price advantage of U.S. apples. They also began selling lesserquality Fuji apples in bags instead of diverting them to processors.

“We should have known that if a new competitor came to the United States, we would not give the market away,” Lutz said.

“They responded like we would. They cut their prices. That had a major impact because the price advantage we enjoyed had eroded.”

In an effort to prime the sales pump for the 1995-96 season, the Washington Apple Commission has allocated $100,000 for promotional activities this summer and fall.

“We are starting from ground zero here,” Lutz said. “As an industry, we are moving into a market that is unlike any market we have gone into before …”