Page 13 - Export or Bust eBook

Kong (and mainland China), and United Arab Emirates, says Todd Fryhover, president of
the Washington Apple Commission.

USDA trade data shows apple shipments to India tripled from 2007 to 2017, to 102,000 metric tons, and

Fryhover expects sales there will keep rising in the next few years. They like Red Delicious, and while
India’s orchards grow a lot of that variety, he says they want more.

Apples, in fact, have become a star on the U.S. fresh fruit exporting stage. Fresh apple exports have
risen by more than 40 percent in the past decade, to 907,000 metric tons in 2017, and the increases
seem to slow only when the U.S. has a short crop. Washington, the top apple producing and exporting
state, ships about a third of its fresh apple harvest abroad, Fryhover says. The state accounts for about a
fourth of U.S. apple exports, the U.S. Apple Association says.

The hot apple export trend compares with the total foreign sales of fresh fruit, and of fruit and
vegetables overall, which have receded somewhat in both volume and value from a peak a few years
ago.

Almost nutty success in nut exports

Tree nuts, meanwhile, are a standout. Exports have been soaring at an almost (excuse our adjective)
nutty pace. Including peanuts, they’ve nearly doubled in the past decade, to 3.7 million metric tons in
2017, adding an astounding $18 billion to last year’s U.S. farm exports tally.

More than 40 percent of the volume of nut exports are almonds from California, which produces
80 percent of the world’s commercial almond crop. Almonds have long dominated that export arena

and last year accounted for half of the total value of nut exports.

And while the tonnage of almond exports has grown a robust 90 percent in the past decade, the growth
rates of foreign sales of walnuts and pistachios have nearly doubled that of almonds in the same period:
both up about 175 percent. Pecan exports have jumped 116 percent since 2007.

“People are wanting healthier, more natural foods,” says California Walnut Commission
Executive Director Michelle McNeil Connelly, and she adds, in many places in the world, they now
have the income to buy them at retail.

She says two-thirds of California walnuts were exported last year, and their popularity is “partly
lifestyle. The whole nut category has increased pretty significantly in Europe and Japan because of the
trend to more healthy eating.”

Even though China and Turkey both have huge walnut crops, they are also leading importers of
American walnuts (especially Hong Kong) because that nut is in the traditional diet and consumers want
more of them, Connelly said.

She’s also another exporter that hopes to expand sales in India. “Walnuts are the highest among
all tree nuts in Omega 3 fatty acids,” which makes that largely vegan nation a good place to sell
walnuts.

Richard Matoian, executive director of the American Pistachio Growers, also ascribes his producers’
soaring export market to consumer demand for a healthful snack – high in both fiber and protein, and

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