Hello John, That is a very difficult question, and I am glad that a lot of people asked you some questions to define better whether you were supplying bins, storage etc.
Here in Ireland I grow, pack and sell apples from my farm. Occasionally I sell fruit to other packers, and on the odd occasion, I pack fruit for other growers. In my own situation, for apples which I sell packed, psychologically I return about 50% of the market price to the orchard operation. In doing this, I am not really allowing any margin on the packing end, and in truth, I could buy the same apples that I grow for 30-40% of the market price. However, if I were to charge internally at these levels, I would not be making anything out in the orchard, and would be better off becoming a full-time packer, which would be giving me a very good return on investment. However, I do not want to be a packer, and don’t pack other people’s apples, because I do not like the parasitic relationship that I see between packers and growers. Therefore, I grow my own apples, pack them, and sell them, and do not pack apples for others, aside from when I am doing them a favour. When I look across at mainland Europe, I see co-operative packing operations that seem to do a bit better than in Ireland, because the growers are in control, and are returned a dividend from the co-operatives. However, I can also see that the more aggressive marketing operations tend to be privately run, but in the long run, I believe that these are detrimental to the good of the grower. Certainly, the independent packers in Ireland have not returned an acceptable price to growers in the past fifteen or twenty years. In your own case, given that you neither store nor provide the bins, I would feel that if you received 35% of the shipped price of the Red Delicious apples, you could not expect a lot more. However, as was already pointed out, this might be fine as an example of an industry average, but might not reflect the apples that you sent in. If you could get back the returns, gradeout etc. for your own apples, that would at least be a starting point. As I found out a few years ago (before I had enough storage and packing capacity myself), one well–respected packer to whom I supplied apples returned me €70 per bin after taking his extortionate storage and packing fees directly off the sales price he received (having sold my apples cheap to secure a customer for himself later in the year). Another guy to whom I sold them (and this person was known to be unreliable) returned me €127 per bin for the same apples, because I agreed a price prior to delivery, because others had warned me to be wary of him. The moral of the story was that I was a fool for trusting the first guy; not a mistake I have made since. Con Traas ________________________________ From: apple-crop@virtualorchard.net [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: 28 February 2008 05:50 To: apple-crop@virtualorchard.net Subject: Apple-Crop: Returns for apples tree run What return for tree run should I expect from a packer for Red Delicious that pack out, say 75%? John Crumpacker ________________________________ Delicious ideas to please the pickiest eaters. Watch the video on AOL Living. <http://living.aol.com/video/how-to-please-your-picky-eater/rachel-campos-duffy/2050827?NCID=aolcmp00300000002598>
