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Not a price report, but it may explain the cost.
The Scramble to Pluck 24 Billion Cherries in Eight Weeks Every single one needs to be picked by hand — even in a pandemic. Seasonal workers say they may be essential, but they feel disposable. *** But it’s not to market yet. The window in which a sweet cherry can be picked for sale is excruciatingly narrow. Cherries don’t continue to ripen once they’re off the tree, the way a peach does, and once picked they don’t store for very long, even when refrigerated. If they’re too ripe, they won’t make it to the packing house, the truck or the airplane, the grocery-store display, your summery dessert. The sugar content must be Goldilocksian — neither too high nor too low. Wait even a couple of days too many, and it may be too late. *** Lewis thinks that people who aren’t used to thinking much about the source of their food, or who assume that the food system is as mechanized and smoothly calibrated as a factory, spitting out produce like so many sticks of gum, ought to spend some time contemplating that figure and what it means. “I’m here to tell you that people do not think we harvest everything by hand,” she says. But hands, belonging to highly skilled workers, are needed for every last cherry. During the harvest, many thousands of people are out picking by dawn, nearly every day, their fingers flying as they watch out for rattlesnakes under dark trees. *** The cherry industry has done everything it can to squeeze every possible bit of extra time into the season. Growers plant at a range of different elevations: Every 100 feet above sea level, one orchard manager says, buys you an extra day until maturity. And they choose different varietals that ripen at slightly different speeds — most red cherries are marketed to the public simply as “dark sweets” but are actually a genetically distinct array, whose different sizes and tastes and unique horticultural personalities are intimately known by growers and pickers. If everything bloomed and matured all at once, Lewis said, there’s no way there would be enough bees, enough trucks, enough bins, to make the scale of the current cherry harvest possible. Most of all, there wouldn’t be enough people. There already aren’t. *** |
$8.99 for 2lbs at Costco today
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$5.95 a pound for California cherries. It was a long winter.
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The roadside stand in Woodside was $10 for the pint (?) jar this weekend. Not very good cherries either. I admit it. I paid anyway.
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$6.99 at whole Foods, but they look like they blew down in the last wind storm
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edit2 - 5/15/21 - $9.99 for 2-lb clamshell at Costco. Conventional.
Wonder how they’ll be at Costco :-) edit - zero Costco cherries on 5/12. safeway / Trader Joe’s have conventional cherries for 4.99-5.99 per pound. I prefer organic and I’ll wait. |
Organic cherries today:
Trader Joe’s - $6.99/lb clamshell costco - $10.99 for a 2-lb clamshell. Eek was it $9.99 or 10.99 i was first at TJ’s so I got the pound. Then I bought the 2-lb at Costco. Either way, my spouse has probably pitted and eaten half of a clamshell by now and I look forward to enjoying them as well when I have my luncheon! |
My local grocery store has cherries for $1.77/pound.
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Originally Posted by gaobest
(Post 33280774)
Organic cherries today:
Trader Joe’s - $6.99/lb clamshell costco - $10.99 for a 2-lb clamshell. Eek was it $9.99 or 10.99 i was first at TJ’s so I got the pound. Then I bought the 2-lb at Costco. Either way, my spouse has probably pitted and eaten half of a clamshell by now and I look forward to enjoying them as well when I have my luncheon! Last week at a normal Costco $8.99, and this week from the Business center, the same. Much better quality. |
Originally Posted by kipper
(Post 33280999)
My local grocery store has cherries for $1.77/pound.
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Safeway CA homegrown. $2.77!
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Originally Posted by Jaimito Cartero
(Post 33281070)
Two weeks ago, a 2 pound clamshell was $9.99 at Costco. Mediocre quality.
Last week at a normal Costco $8.99, and this week from the Business center, the same. Much better quality.
Originally Posted by vanillabean
(Post 33281234)
Safeway CA homegrown. $2.77!
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$9.99 at Costco. Too early to pay that amount, especially for red cherries (for Rainier might be more tempted at that price)
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Shop-rite sale today at $2.49
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Originally Posted by thelark
(Post 33281142)
nice - thought I had a good deal at 1.99 here
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You guys are getting cherries in stock?!
They're grown in state, and I have yet to see them at my local (albeit somewhat bougie) store. :( |
Imperfect produce just brought me a pound of conventional California cherries for $3.99. So they're definitely around. That's typical around here in season, maybe sometimes as low as $2.99/lb but that's not that common.
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Originally Posted by Polytonic
(Post 33281993)
You guys are getting cherries in stock?!
They're grown in state, and I have yet to see them at my local (albeit somewhat bougie) store. :( |
Think we ate a pound today. I’m still eating some now.
https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...653e76289.jpeg |
Publix has advertised in this week's ad California cherries at $3.99/lb.
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Whole Foods and Stop & Shop are both at $4.99/lb this weekend, while ShopRite is $4.49 or $2.49 with digital coupon. WF are apparently from New Zealand if I believe the photo online, with the other two from California.
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Originally Posted by Calcifer
(Post 33283234)
Whole Foods and Stop & Shop are both at $4.99/lb this weekend, while ShopRite is $4.49 or $2.49 with digital coupon. WF are apparently from New Zealand if I believe the photo online, with the other two from California.
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The gourmet convenience store near my house has conventional California for $3.99/lb
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Aldi has them on sale for $1.59/lb this week, and the ones I just got are gorgeous.
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I think Sf Costco is $13.99 for 2-lb clamshell of organic Rainier. Conventional is $9.99 (2-lb).
They lacked organic cherries and I didn’t recall the price. |
Publix in NMB has them for $3.99/lb.
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"Local" cherries at C$2.97/lb.
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Bings for $1.99/lb at several stores here. Rainier $5.99/lb. Haven't been buying any since we have a rainier tree at our new place that's giving us a pint or 2 every day, and a huge bing tree next door that is loaded- take all you want. Until a few weeks ago I had never even seen a cherry tree with cherries on it.
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$1.99 for delivery ONLY via target.com, or 3.99 if you pickup in store. 4.99 in Whole Foods (NY)
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My Brooklyn neighborhood green grocer has them for $1.99 / lb. Package says they're from California.
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My local grocery store has them for $1.47/lb. if you spend $25 in a transaction. They list them as "Washington" cherries.
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$1.49 at Aldi but I never shop there. $3.99 at Publix. I wish I hadn’t bought 2 pounds of tasteless cherries. They’re juicy, but very little flavor. The bag says Washington state.
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Can we now skip over the Bing red cherries and move onto the far better "Rainer" golds. In next weeks Aldis at $3.99
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Vons (Safeway) in Southern California has them this week at $1.88/lb. Bought 4.25 lbs yesterday and the ones I tested were quite acceptable.
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Publix has regular cherries on sale for $2.99/lb. and Rainier at $3.99/lb. in this week's flyer. I guess many people make Cherry Pie for the holiday.
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Rainier 2-lb clamshell at Costco for $10.99
organic red 2-lb clamshell also for $10.99 |
Originally Posted by teddybear99
(Post 33377558)
Publix has regular cherries on sale for $2.99/lb. and Rainier at $3.99/lb. in this week's flyer. I guess many people make Cherry Pie for the holiday.
Tough job with all those pits. I found a sealed pouch of bings on the shelf today at Trader Joes, They were in a opaque bag so I felt them through the lining and yup they had the pits in them |
Originally Posted by Lomapaseo
(Post 33379177)
Tough job with all those pits.
I found a sealed pouch of bings on the shelf today at Trader Joes, They were in a opaque bag so I felt them through the lining and yup they had the pits in them Sale price at Winn Dixie this week is $1.99. |
One local store had cherries for 97 cents a pound last week, but had a 2 pound limit.
Costco’s 3 pound clamshells have been good quality, lately. $8.99, I think. |
Originally Posted by Lomapaseo
(Post 33379177)
Tough job with all those pits.
I found a sealed pouch of bings on the shelf today at Trader Joes, They were in a opaque bag so I felt them through the lining and yup they had the pits in them |
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