NOVEMBER 2017 • COUNTRY LIFE IN BC
BC Tree Fruits singled out for excellence
Agriculture recognized for first time by Chamber of Commerce by TOM WALKER
KELOWNA – The Kelowna Chamber of Commerce has been handing out Business Excellence awards for 30 years. This year, it added a new category, Excellence in Agriculture, and presented the very first award to the BC Tree Fruits Co-operative, a business with over 80 years of history in the Okanagan Valley. “This was the first time that the chamber has recognized agriculture,” explains Chris Pollock, marketing manager for BC Tree Fruits. “The Tree Fruits brand has been around for 81 years and to win this inaugural award means a lot to us.” Pollock says that the award
recognizes the role BC Tree Fruits plays in the business community. “Kelowna is an agricultural
city. This is local recognition of what we do,” says Pollock. “We represent 430 grower families in the Okanagan, Similkameen and Creston valleys who rely on agriculture.” “It is also a recognition of
the strengthening of the fruit industry in the Okanagan,” he adds. “It shows that fruit growing is a viable industry.” The replant program has
given a stimulus to the industry, he says, and there are even farmers who are planting bare land that was not previously used for fruit growing. “It speaks to innovation in the industry as well,” says BCTF grower services manager Hank Markgraf, who was part of the team that accepted the award. “Whether it’s better business planning, working with new varieties such as Honeycrisp, improving our storage techniques, the Sterile Insect Release program or using the new computer-based decision aid system to support pest management, the industry is moving forward.” The Ambrosia apple is a
key to that expansion, says Pollock. “Within BC Tree Fruits
growers, we are looking at a 150% increase in Ambrosia production over the next seven to nine years,” he says. “We expect that Ambrosia will pass Galas in volume at some point. We will need to do our due diligence to find markets for those apples.” Indeed, Country Life in BC spoke with Pollock as he was on his way to Chicago and the eastern US on a marketing trip.
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BC Tree Fruits Co-operative marketing manager Chris Pollock takes the podium to thank members of the Kelowna Chamber of Commerce for recognizing agriculture for the first time as part of its Business Excellence awards while CEO Stan Swales, Michael Daley and Hank Markgraf look on. LEGEND PHOTOGRAPHY PHOTO
Growers are also
replanting with cherries, particularly later varieties, filling a strong market demand that includes exports to China. “We were just short of our
largest cherry crop ever with 10 million pounds,” says Pollock of this year’s harvest.
Summer scramble
Markgraf says the heat caused the season to be compressed with cherry varieties maturing quickly and arriving almost on top of each other. That kept growers scrambling. “The pickers had to start
really early in the morning. With the heat, fruit had to get into the coolers quickly and growers didn’t have a break between varieties, so it was
hard to schedule pickers across the valley,” he says. A harvest that might go to the first week of September some years was over August 20.
“We went from a monsoon
to drought,” he notes. “The cool wet spring had us worrying about fruit size and then the nearly 70 days of constant heat impacted the crop as well and it certainly tested the limits of everyone’s irrigation.” Apples were also
challenging. “Our field service staff have
been really hustling, too. We’ve been maturity testing (sampling for ripeness) for something from the second
week of June until about now. “We’ve just finished setting out dates for Fuji apples” Markgraf says. “We try to get out the best information we can to the growers. It’s a long season.” Overall, apple sizes are smaller as well, says Markgraf, although the dry fall with cooler temperatures helped Ambrosias turn the red colour the market favours. He notes the season has slowed to more usual timing through the fall. “We expect our Pink Lady
crop to be ready the last week of October or the first week of November, which is pretty normal,” he says.
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