Fast fruit to China, via Grant County

MOSES LAKE — Sometimes speed is of the essence.

Washington cherry orchards produce the best fruit in the world, and some consumers will pay a premium for the biggest cherries. But cherries present a problem.

Of all the fruit that comes out of central Washington orchards, cherries are among the most perishable and delicate. And a lot of the customers for those premium cherries don’t live within driving distance of a Washington orchard.

So – how to get to those customers who live in China or somewhere? No, really, some of the customers for premium cherries are in China.

This summer a regional cherry marketer is trying to answer that question by using the Grant County International Airport.

So the chartered Boeing 747 that landed at the airport Monday evening was conducting an experiment of sorts. “This is a test,” said Jeff Bishop, director of the Port of Moses Lake.

The 747 was in town to pick up a load of cherries, fruit which was probably hanging on a tree near Wenatchee or Quincy or Chelan or Okanogan County within the previous 24 hours. The fruit is chilled and shipped to the airport in a refrigerated truck, where it’s stored in a hangar that’s been temporarily converted to cold storage. “Time is of the essence. As is temperature,” Bishop said.

Loading the fruit takes about four hours. Then “this jet is going to Shanghai,” a flight of 10 to 12 hours. “They (cherries) get to Shanghai in less than a day.”

It’s a lucrative niche market, and cherry marketers have been doing it for a few years. But up until now the fruit has been shipped from Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, “because that’s where the airplanes were.”

There’s much less traffic out of Grant County International, which “makes it difficult for us to compete, even though we’re much closer,” Bishop said. However, Sea-Tac has become so busy that the Moses Lake airport is becoming a more attractive alternative.

Time on the ground has become a problem at Sea-Tac, Bishop said, and the longer trip means there’s a greater risk of damaging the cherries in transit. In addition, four loads of cherries can be transported to Moses Lake in the same amount of time it takes to transport two loads to Seattle, he said.

Monday’s inaugural charter will be followed by others during cherry season. If the experiment is a success, some customers are willing to build cold storage at Grant County International, he said. But regardless of the outcome of this experiment, Port of Moses Lake officials have a long-term interest in building a cold storage facility, Bishop said.

Cheryl Schweizer can be reached via email at education@columbiabasinherald.com.