The market for Okanagan cherries may be there, but the weather has put a damper on this year’s crop.

Alan Tyabji, CEO of BC Tree Fruit, told Kelowna-based media outlets on Thursday that the marketing is suffering.

Photo credit: KelownaNow.com

Last year, BC Tree Fruits received 10.5 million pounds of cherries and it was expected that there would be 12 million pounds this year. The weather then changed and the heat caused the crop expectations to lower to 9 million pounds.

It didn’t stop there, though. The increased amount of rain the Okanagan has been getting has made crops to go down to 7.5 million pounds.

"This 7.5 million is a good number. Our main objective is to keep our customers happy. So, 7.5 million allows us to keep our customers satisfied, not thrilled, they would like to have more cherries, but they're satisfied," Tyabji said.

Cherries that are exported out of Canada are larger-sized cherries. Tyabji said that other markets are willing to pay an extreme premium for extra-large cherries. Domestic markets then get the smaller sized cherries, which are of the same quality.

“The quality is identical, it comes right off the line, and it’s a size that’s differentiated."

The cherries have also been splitting, which is causing an additional dip for the market. Typically, the larger cherries will split before the smaller ones. This means export numbers are down.

According to Tyabji, BC Tree Fruits expected to ship 3.5 million pounds of cherries this year. Now, the expectation is maybe 2 million pounds.

With all this bad news, there is still some good news.

In the past, cherries were known as the chandelier fruit. They had this name because every five years someone would be able to afford a chandelier.

Tyabji said previously that only one year in a five-year span had a good cherry crop. This shows that even though cherry growers aren’t having the best year, it’s still better than how it used to be.