November 2022 - 10

Tart cherry industry seeks brand protections
By Chris Koger
Managing Editor
The U.S. tart cherry industry has seen
significant changes in its marketing
landscape in the past decade, with
imports overshadowing the domestic
supplies some years in the wake of
weather events that limited production.
Now that imported tart cherry
products have found a foothold in
the U.S., the industry is seeking a
novel way to protect and promote
the Montmorency variety, which
makes up more than 95% of the
crop: differentiating the variety with
a geographical indication (GI). The
process involves petitioning the U.S.
Patent and Trademark Office to receive
the GI designation, which gives the
industry some added legal protection
for the Montmorency variety.
U.S. production struggles
Up to three-fourths of the
Montmorency variety is produced in
Michigan, which has seen some weatherrelated
production challenges in the
past decade; the rest mostly comes from
Utah, Washington and Wisconsin. The
stark change in the import picture can
be traced to 2012, said Julie Gordon,
president of the Cherry Marketing
Institute and executive director of the
Michigan Cherry Committee.
The Cherry Industry Administrative Board (CIAB), which oversees the federal marketing
order for tart cherries, has directed grower assessments to conduct health and
nutrition research of the Montmorency variety. Photo: CIAB.
That year, an early spring followed
by a freeze devastated Michigan's fruit
crops, and cherry growers there saw
the lowest production on record. For
the most part, tart cherry harvests
in the state have been in the 250- to
300-million-pound range since then,
with the high point of 341 million
pounds in 2016, Gordon said. The
last two harvests, however, have
been around 141 million and
172 million pounds.
That's exacerbated a troubling trend
that began in 2012: a flood of imports,
mostly from Turkey, but also Serbia and
Chile. In 2009, according to the CMI, the
U.S. imported 35.9 million pounds. That
more than doubled in two years, followed
by a jump to 184.1 million pounds
of imports in 2012 when domestic
production plummeted.
Last year, Gordon said, tart cherry
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imports, mostly in the form of juice, hit a
record 275.7 million pounds.
" Right now, they are seriously affecting
our market, because they are imported at
a price way below the cost of production, "
Gordon said, citing subsidized
production in some exporting countries.
Protecting the brand
In many cases, Gordon said, consumers
don't know they're purchasing imported
cherries. Virtually all tart cherries are
processed into juice and other forms,
such as canned and frozen, shortly after
harvest because they rapidly break down.
To differentiate U.S. cherries, the
industry has been focusing on promoting
and branding the Montmorency variety,
a tactic originally used in export
markets and now in the U.S., to compete
against imported tart cherries. The
CMI developed a logo that highlights
the variety, and the federal marketing
order administered by the group has
used grower assessments to fund health
research on the variety.
Unfortunately, some of the imported
cherries are following suit, bearing labels
that they're Montmorency cherries.
" We feel the need to protect our
identity and the variety that we are
primarily selling in the marketplace, and
we want to protect our variety from being
misused by other countries for marketing
purposes, " Gordon said.
The Michigan Cherry Committee,
funded by an $89,000 Specialty Crop
Block Grant, hired attorney Chris
10 | FruitGrowersNews.com
Bardenhagen to lead the effort to receive
the GI label.
Not all cherries are the same,
Bardenhagen said, and U.S. tart cherry
growers have taken steps to set the
Montmorency variety apart from others
in the market.
" We're trying to find a way to help
protect that and do some more brand
building, and the geographic indication
does both, " he said.
Over the winter, Bardenhagen worked
with growers to discuss production
practices and potential logos for the
label, followed by consumer research on
Montmorency cherries in the spring and
summer. He recently filed the application
with the U.S. Patent and Trademark
Office (USPTO).
" The USPTO unfortunately is very
backlogged, so we might not be hearing
anything back until spring, " Bardenhagen
said. " It's a legal process. "
The GI gives CMI the ability to
file " cease and desist " letters against
companies that mislabel products as
made with Montmorency cherries. The
CMI is also looking into seeking the GI
for products sold in the European Union.
" It does give us the ability to sue in
other countries if we believe something
fraudulent or unfair is going on, "
Bardenhagen said.
A step farther
Gordon said the U.S. tart cherry
industry has another possible solution
to the rising imports and protecting
the brand domestically: moving from
the federal marketing order model to
a research and promotion program.
By doing so, domestic and imported
tart cherries would be assessed, but
countries that export to the U.S. would
be represented on the board, as would
importers of those products.
" It's been a tough season, and the
imports continue to come in. They're not
going to go away, " Gordon said. " It's safe
to say that this is an option we're looking
at. We're starting to talk about it more
and more. "
Gordon said grower education will
be key in the decision, but she said the
rising imports have shown that there is a
demand for tart cherry products.
" The U.S. tart cherry growers alone
cannot supply for the demand that we
have built in the United States for tart
cherry products, " she said. " We have
to think about working with them
(exporters) and leveling the playing field if
our growers are going to stay in business. "
U.S. growers are already paying
assessments through the marketing
order, so expanding to a research and
promotion order isn't an extra fee on
doing business, she said.
" We seriously are taking a step back
and looking at the sustainability for
the tart cherry industry, because these
imports are not going to go away, "
Gordon said. " How are our growers going
to survive with the world marketplace
the way it is today? We've got to shift and
look at our options and think about our
long-term stability. " FGN
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November 2022

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