January 26, 2018
CapitalPress.com
11
Allan Bros. builds large apple packing plant
By DAN WHEAT
Capital Press
NACHES, Wash. — Allan
Bros. Inc., a small tree fruit
company with more than
century-old roots, is build-
ing a new $40 million apple
packing facility managers
say they need to remain com-
petitive.
Construction
of
the
300,000-square-foot storage
and packing facility began
last March. It will be opera-
tional by the end of October,
said Miles Kohl, company
CEO.
“We are designing it to
meet the needs of our five-
year outlook and as addition-
al volume opportunities pres-
ent themselves,” Kohl said.
Allan Bros. packs about
3.5 million, 40-pound boxes
of apples annually and will
have the capacity to pack 5
million to 6 million boxes
Courtesy of Allan Bros. Inc.
Part of the new $40 million Allan Bros. Inc. apple packing and
storage plant near Naches, Wash., in its initial construction phase
last April.
with the new line, Kohl said.
The company also packs
about 1.5 million, 20-pound
boxes of cherries each season
on a separate line.
The new line enables Al-
lan Bros. to meet its packag-
ing and marketing goals and
handle its expanding orchard
acreage and the increasing
acreage of its Enza apple
growers, Kohl said.
Allan Bros. markets most
of its fruit through Rainier
Fruit Co., Selah, and its Enza
brand apples through The
Oppenheimer Group in Seat-
tle. Enza apples include Jazz,
Envy and Pacific Rose.
At the Washington State
Tree Fruit Association annu-
al meeting in December, Mi-
chael Butler, CEO of the Seat-
tle investment bank Cascadia
Capital LLC, told growers
more consolidation of smaller
Washington tree fruit compa-
nies is likely within the next
six to 24 months because new,
expensive packing lines are
running too far below capac-
ity.
Asked about that, Kohl
said the industry is poised
for more consolidation due to
ownership transitions, labor
shortages and other factors.
He said Allan Bros. is under-
taking the largest investment
in its history to position itself
to better survive any potential
consolidation.
The new apple line is being
installed by Van Doren Sales
with New Zealand Compac
Spectrim defect sorters and
graders. It features a 10-lane
Compac pre-size portion with
room to eventually expand to
15 lanes. The 7-lane commit-
to-pack side can be expand-
ed to 13 lanes, said Patrick
O’Brine, Van Doren sales-
man. Van Doren is headquar-
tered in East Wenatchee and
has an office in Union Gap.
“It’s a hybrid pre-size with
three water bin fillers each
capable of filling six different
products, particular grade and
size combinations,” O’Brine
said.
All the fruit goes through
the pre-size first. Only the fruit
to be packed right away goes
to the commit-to-pack line, he
said. The rest of the fruit, sort-
ed and sized, is stored until
needed for packing.
Pre-sizing has been used a
long time but this is only the
third line in the Rainier mar-
keting group in which pre-
sized fruit can go directly to
packing, he said.
The pre-size is capable of
100 bins per hour, the new
industry norm, with a cruis-
ing average of 3,000 to 4,000
pieces of fruit per minute,
O’Brine said. That speed is
more than double that of the
company’s old 1970s com-
mit-to-pack and 10-year-old
pre-size line, Kohl said. The
latter will be kept but not
the old commit-to-pack, he
said.
“The new line gives us
the ability to reduce our ra-
tio of labor hours to output
significantly,” Kohl said.
Food safety is enhanced
with stainless steel and elec-
tric replacing hydraulic com-
ponents so there’s no chance
of hydraulic fluid contaminat-
ing apples, he said.
Washington H-2A guestworker use keeps growing
By DAN WHEAT
Capital Press
WENATCHEE, Wash. — The
H-2A-visa foreign guestworker
program accounted for 20 percent
of the peak seasonal farm work-
force in Washington last year and
is still growing, the director of the
WAFLA farm labor association
says.
A total of 18,535 H-2A visas
were approved for the state in 2017,
up 35 percent from 13,689 the year
before, Dan Fazio, WAFLA direc-
tor, said at the association’s annual
H-2A Workforce Summit on Jan.
17.
Of that amount, WAFLA hired
7,134, according to the U.S. Depart-
ment of Labor. That was direct hiring
for employers, like a labor contrac-
tor. WAFLA also helped less directly
with approximately 5,000 more.
“The program is great except for
the cost and the cost is mandating
you have productive workers,” Fazio
told about 200 growers. Costs vary,
but typically run about $1,300 per
worker per year for hiring and trans-
portation, excluding wages, he has
said in the past.
Dan Wheat/Capital Press File
H-2A-visa foreign guestworkers thin Gala apples near Rock Island, Wash. In 2017, H-2A workers accounted for about 20
percent of Washington state’s peak seasonal farm workforce.
The main driver of the cost is
wages, with the Adverse Effect
Wage Rate established by the U.S.
Department of Labor, he said.
That’s the minimum wage for H-2A
workers and has gone up an aver-
age of 4.5 percent a year for the past
four years while most U.S. wages
have gone up just 2 percent, he said.
Often H-2A workers are paid
piece rate for harvest and make
more than the AEWR, which is
$14.12 this year in Washington and
Oregon.
If 20,000 H-2A workers come to
the state in 2018 and earn $30,000
apiece, that’s $600 million, Fazio
said.
Employers save $1,854 in pay-
roll taxes on an H-2A worker stay-
ing six months — assuming 3 per-
cent unemployment insurance, 45
hours per week and $15 per hour
— which helps offset costs, he said.
Roxana Macias, compliance di-
rector of CSI Visa Processing, hired
by WAFLA to recruit workers in
Mexico, said workers are eager to
sign up because the best workers
earn $25 a day in Mexico but can
earn that in two hours in the U.S.
“We’re concentrating on worker
quality, getting productive work-
ers,” Fazio said, adding it would
help if the program allowed work-
ers to return home for one week
every three months. Workers miss
their homes and their productivity
tends to decline the longer they stay,
he said. The program limits workers
to 10 months.
Higher density
plantings help offset
shrinkage in pear acres
Smaller crop keeps
prices strong
By DAN WHEAT
Capital Press
WENATCHEE, Wash. —
While Washington pear acre-
age has declined 25 percent
in the last 16 years, there’s no
reason to think pears are in
jeopardy, says Kevin Moffitt,
president of The Pear Bureau
Northwest.
Higher density plantings
and a bump in the number
of trees planted doesn’t fully
offset the drop in acreage but
enables Washington to con-
tinue to produce large pear
crops, Moffitt told growers at
the Northcentral Washington
Pear Day on Jan. 17 at the
Wenatchee Convention Cen-
ter.
Washington typically pro-
duces 50 percent of the na-
tional crop with the other 50
percent split between Oregon
and California.
A USDA National Agricul-
tural Statistics Service survey
of Washington tree fruit acre-
age, issued Nov. 8, showed a
4.7 percent drop in pear acre-
age from 22,008 acres in 2011
to 20,965 in 2017. The peak
was 28,000 acres in 2001,
Moffitt said.
There was a bump in trees
planted between 2006 and
2011. They are just now com-
ing into full production. Trees
are planted at a higher density
— 397 trees per acre, up from
191 before 1996.
“With the right weather
conditions, we can still pro-
duce a large crop. Over time,
if we continue to lose acres,
that would be concerning. At
this time, we can still have full
and increasing crops with the
right conditions. Pears are not
going away,” Moffitt said.
The Pear Bureau’s Jan. 12
crop report shows the 2017
crop at 17 million, 44-pound
boxes, down 5 percent from
the 2016 crop and down 7
percent from the 18.3 mil-
lion-box Aug. 22 estimate. It’s
13 percent below the five-year
average of 19.6 million boxes.
The crop is smaller from
more cork than anticipated in
Wenatchee and Hood River
d’Anjous, Moffitt said.
Cork is decay caused by a
calcium deficiency that’s usu-
ally accentuated by heat.
As of Jan. 12, 53 percent
of the 2017 crop had been
shipped versus 59 percent a
year ago and 62 percent two
years ago. Movement is slow-
er because of a later harvest,
Moffitt said.
Bartlett and Starkrimson
are down 20 percent from
last year and moving well, he
said. Bosc is down 23 percent
and moving well while green
d’Anjou is up 12 percent and
red d’Anjou is up 11 percent
and hopefully will begin
picking up in sales, Moffitt
said.
Exports are down just
100,000 boxes from the same
point last year. Due to the
smaller crop more small fruit,
typically exported, is being
held for domestic sales in
increasingly popular pouch
bags, he said.
Prices are strong.
The Jan. 18 average of
industry asking prices in
Wenatchee and Yakima was
$30 to $36 per box for sizes
70s, 80s and 90s U.S. No. 1
grade Bartlett, according to
USDA. That’s up $2 per box
on the low end and $4 on the
high end from Sept. 22.
Jan. 18 prices were $25
to $30 for the same sizes and
grade of d’Anjou. It was $28
to $34 for 70s and 80s No. 1
Bosc and $26 to $32 for 90s.
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