What’s next?
That’s the unanswerable question B.C. orchardists are asking themselves in the wake of this week’s surprising news that BC Tree Fruits is closing its doors.
First established in 1936, the business is a cooperative of 300-plus families that helps farmers promote their fruits while also transporting them to market.
That changed on Friday, though, when BC Tree Fruits announced that it could no longer “effectively operate the business moving forward.”
In an email to Global News, the Kelowna-based company said it “and all of its subsidiaries will be taking steps to seek court direction and assistance to liquidate the Cooperative in an effort to maximize recovery for all stakeholders.”
It also said, “This is a very unfortunate situation, and we are working with our lenders and advisors as we embark on this process. We respectfully ask for your patience as we navigate through the process.”
If you’ve ever eaten an apple from B.C., odds are you’ve had to peel off BC Tree Fruits’ small but iconic leaf-shaped sticker before consuming it.
Now, with that door now closed to them, Okanagan farmers are trying to figure out their next steps, like: Who will accept, market and ship this year’s fruit?
The only option, for now, it appears are private fruit packers.
One Okanagan orchardist, Mike Mitchell of Lake Country, told Global News that private businesses tried luring him away from BC Tree Fruits, but he remained loyal and rebuffed those offers.
In an interview with Global News, Mitchell, a fourth-generation farmer, said the private sector doesn’t pay as much as BC Tree Fruits.
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“But it comes down to the quality of fruit,” added Mitchell, a fourth-generation farmer and former BC Tree Fruits board member. “You have to compare an apple to an apple.”
Asked if residents and tourists will see a repeat of history with more local fruit stands alongside roads and highways, Mitchell, who grows mainly apples, said no.
“What I do believe is we’ll see a cleansing,” he said. “I believe that some of the lower-grade fruit and maybe some of the not-so-productive blocks will come out of production and probably get replanted into cherries or higher-value apples.
“I believe there’s going to be a shift in the industry.”
Mitchell said profit margins in the fruit industry are small, and that “you have to grow good quality to stay afloat these days.”
He added, “It’s a grower-based company. And if the growers aren’t turning a profit, we can’t continue to function as BC Tree Fruits.”
Mitchell also noted he spoke with a group of growers about potentially starting up a BC Tree Fruits copy, but instead of running it as a cooperative, run it as a private business.
“Maybe 10 or 20 growers get together, pool their resources and start their own packing entity,” he said.
In the meantime, B.C. agriculture minister Pam Alexis said the province will work with fruit growers to understand this week’s impacts and that it will provide support where possible.
Jennifer Deol, who runs There and Back Again Farms in Kelowna, said this week’s news means small farmers are losing access to cold storage and distribution infrastructure needed to sell their crops to wholesalers, in the middle of what has already been a catastrophic growing season for many.
“With our table grapes, if we don’t find an avenue to store them, they’re going to spoil. It’s not worth it for us to pick it. We’ve always worked with BC Tree Fruits where they store the product for us, and they sell it for us, and now we’re facing a future where we have to figure that out ourselves,” she said.
“We do not have the infrastructure, and nor does most growers, to just store their apples for the season until they can find someone to buy it.
“That logistic is something that’s going to be a nightmare for a lot of growers, and it’s something we’re trying to grapple with right now.”
Deol added that without the co-op, most growers will likely have to turn to private packers to handle their fruit and risk getting less money for their crops, which already have tight profit margins.
They’ll also be working to distribute as much as they can on their own, she said.
“We’re just talking to everybody that we know, to be like, ‘What can you take?’ Because we’ve got hundreds of bins of apples (coming in September). There’s no way we can sell that ourselves.”
— with files from the Canadian Press