You can find United States-grown cherries from June through Labor Day for as low as $8.99 per pound and typically drop to $3.99 per pound as the season goes on. In the off-season, you can find cherries from Turkey and Chile, but again, the price reflects the cost of shipping. Cherries can be expensive all year round, even if you’re lucky enough to find them in the market. As long as you can find cherries in the store, the price will remain relatively the same.
Cherries are expensive because most varieties have a relatively short growing season, and this massively limits their production rates. At the same time, cherries do not last as long in cold storage as many other fruits, so the small volume produced often rot away quickly.
By the time these cherry trees are harvested and the product hits stores, the cherry season is only a few weeks away. The main reasons why cherries are so expensive are the following. The short growing season for cherries means the cherry season passes in the blink of an eye, and often not long enough to see prices drop significantly. The growing season for cherries or tart cherries is much shorter and can be found within a week or two, usually mid-June in warmer regions and July and August in colder regions.
Cherry Seasons Are Often Limited
The earliest cherry harvests begin in the eastern continental states and continue until the end of February, with the bulk of the cherry harvest in December and January. The main reasons why cherries are so expensive are the following.
The combination of season and geographic boundaries of areas where cherries can be grown (which can result in higher production costs as they must be transported around the United States) allows cherry growers to charge higher fees. This, combined with the tendency of Rainier cherries to break easily and have a very short season, means they are also more expensive.
They are also more expensive than other types of cherries, but fans say the fruit is worth the extra cost. Cherries are a treat, and not only because of the taste – they are one of the most expensive fruits in the grocery section. Cherry is not only one of the most expensive fruits, but rarely falls into the budget price range.
Cherries Are Expensive Everywhere
You will still see cherries for sale in the market, where they will often be sold at or slightly above cost to draw people into the store. This creates more demand as people know the cherry season will be short and want to buy fresh in-season cherries for as long as possible (via The Produce Nerd). Farmed leads to higher demand because people know they won’t have cherries for a long time and want to buy fresh in-season cherries as soon as they become available.
As a result, the berries are often harvested before they are ripe and end up in warehouses until they are sold. They only last a few days after harvest, and once they begin to ripen, they quickly turn into a mushy mass.
California cherries arrive in early June, mid-June is usually the off-season, more northern crops gradually replace them in the summer, and British Columbia cherries end in early August. Mid to late May is the start of the cherry picking season. If you’re wondering when your state’s cherry picking season begins, check out the table below.
Some Seasons are Better for Buying than Others
Once cherry season hits Washington state in mid-June, you’ll start to see prices plummet. Prices for California grown cherries continue to skyrocket until they enter the Bing variety (around mid to late May) so you start to see prices drop a bit but they are still high as sales hard to find in the store.
To offset the cost, California cherries are often sold in 1.33 lb bags instead of 2-3 lb bags earlier in the season. At the start of the season, some packers are starting to sell 1.33 lb bags to help consumers cope with high cherry prices.
As with many fruits and vegetables, supply and demand determine prices, and with such a short season and so much of our crop sold overseas (where buyers pay high prices), cherries can be expensive most of the time.
Cherry Seasons Around the World
Cherries, including the popular Bing and Rainier varieties, are available at the store. Imported cherries can affect the price of domestic cherries as American cherries are more expensive than Turkish cherries. Since cherries are very expensive, some consumers will choose not to shop at all, and this may result in some store losses.
While it would be nice to eat cherries all year round, there is usually not much time during which you can find them in the supermarket. That’s a total of seven or eight weeks, so if you love cherries and see a few good ones at the fruit stand, buy them because the next time you look, they might be gone. The dollar or two you could save to catch them in a last-minute sale probably won’t be worth the chance of losing cherries this season.
In the US, cherries can only be grown in California, Oregon, Washington, and regions where the season lasts only three to four months. Chelan cherries, also known as “black cherries”, grow in the Pacific Northwest and ripen early, ahead of Bing cherries by up to two weeks (mid-June). Cherries have a shorter growing season and are usually available for several weeks, typically from June to July in warmer than normal areas, and through late July and August in regions with cooler temperatures. The turn means that cherry growers must harvest early to get the highest price.
