Supply Chain issues Story Archives - West Virginia Public Broadcasting

Another Apple Surplus Prompts Search For Long-Term Solutions

Fall in West Virginia’s Eastern Panhandle means apple season. Visitors from near and far visit Reddington’s Farm & Orchard in Harpers Ferry to pick their own apples — a way to get fresh produce, and also a fun family activity.

This year, owner Tina Reddington said her main concern has been the weather. The region experienced a severe drought in July and August, followed by a sudden tropical storm.

“We’re in a funky spot where, when the storms come through, they kind of go around our farm,” she said. Still, “We’ve been affected by the drought, so we have less apples than we usually do.”

Across the state, local orchards might have a normal season ahead. Or, like Reddington’s, they might even be slightly behind on apple output.

But the situation is vastly different on larger, commercial farms, which grow apples specially to be processed into packaged products like applesauce and apple concentrate.

Many of these orchards are found in West Virginia. And, despite the weather woes, many of these orchards currently cannot find buyers for all of their apples.

Nowhere to sell

“Imports in the apple ingredient community have greatly diminished the opportunity for the American farmer to sell a perfectly good apple into the apple processing world,” said Mike Meyer, head of farmer advocacy at FarmLink. His nonprofit helps connect farmers experiencing oversupply with food banks and hunger relief programs.

“This has most directly impacted the farmers in West Virginia, but they’re not alone,” he said.

According to Meyer, the country’s increased dependence on imported goods reduces sales for American farmers. Plus, apple exports fell during the pandemic, and haven’t fully recovered.

Apple trees blossom in the springtime at Shanholtz Orchards, located on the outskirts of the Hampshire County town of Romney.

*Photo Credit: Chris Schulz/West Virginia Public Broadcasting*

Problems like these in the apple industry aren’t new. Last year, tens of millions of pounds in West Virginia-grown apples didn’t have an immediate buyer. Many farmers were unsure how to proceed.

“It is fair to say that the apple processing market and those communities have all but disappeared,” Meyer said. “What is remaining is of so little economic benefit to the farmer that the farmer has to decide if it’s better to not even harvest their apple at all and just let it go to waste.”

A federal intervention

Then the federal government stepped in. In 2023, the state received $10 million in United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) funding through the Agricultural Adjustment Act, a 1935 law allowing the government to subsidize agricultural oversupply.

Officials with the West Virginia Department of Agriculture used this funding to subsidize millions of pounds of apples. Then, through nonprofits like FarmLink, the 16 million pounds of produce were donated to food banks and hunger relief programs nationwide.

This year, West Virginia will repeat that process. In late August, Sen. Joe Manchin announced that the USDA would provide West Virginia $3.1 million this year to help growers sell off their surplus.

One West Virginia business that participated in the program in 2023 is Appalachian Orchard Company, a family farm in Berkeley County. The company was one of many that experienced apple oversupply last year.

“A lot of them went bad in storage and they lost money on them,” said sales team member Christopher Daniel. “They haven’t been able to recuperate from everything.”

Daniel said federal support saved last season’s harvest. While the conditions causing the oversupply this year persist, he said Appalachian Orchard Company feels better knowing the fund redistribution program can offer additional support.

“I think this is going to help a lot of growers who didn’t have an outlet at all because they grow primarily processing apples,” Daniel said. “It’s going to give them somewhere to ship their apples where they would’ve just had to let them fall on the ground.”

Patriot Guardians, a Kanawha County-based agricultural education program for veterans and military service members, grows apples to be turned into ciders.

*Photo Credit: Briana Heaney/West Virginia Public Broadcasting*

The bigger picture

Still, some state and federal officials worry that recurring supply problems could mark a long-term issue for the industry.

Manchin, who Meyer said played a key role in securing the 2023 and 2024 USDA funding, recently pushed for a USDA study on the apple surplus in West Virginia.

The bill was passed by the Senate Appropriations Committee, and aims to better understand the issues affecting the state’s apple market, namely difficulties preserving and selling surplus produce.

“This study will examine the limited refrigerated storage capacity within processing facilities, particularly in West Virginia and the broader region where these facilities are located,” a representative from Manchin’s office wrote in an email to West Virginia Public Broadcasting.

The study will also explore “whether there has been a significant increase in foreign apple imports, including apple concentrate, which may be displacing local apples in the market,” the email read.

Meyer agreed that struggles in the apple industry extend beyond a single year’s harvest. But, at the same time, he thinks part of the problem for farmers is simply not knowing where to send produce.

According to the USDA, about 14 percent of U.S. households faced food insecurity in 2023.

Meanwhile, the USDA has also found up to 40 percent of the nation’s food supply goes to waste. That is more than 133 billion pounds of food.

Meyer says supporting American farmers and reducing food waste could go hand in hand. It’s just a matter of connecting extra produce with people and communities in need.

And this year, FarmLink will help reroute trade networks once again, packing millions of pounds of apples into trucks for redistribution.

“Fresh produce is a much lower-cost alternative to prepared foods to combat food insecurity.” Meyer said. “But fresh produce requires a completely different handling system. So it’s not the end-all solution, but it can get us a long way there.”

Four Years Later, COVID-19 Pandemic Effect On W.Va. Retail

Shortly after the first COVID-19 case hit West Virginia four years ago, our way of day-to-day living drastically changed. Many of those alterations dealt with how we went shopping.

West Virginia Retailers Association President Bridget Lambert spoke with Randy Yohe on COVID-19’s effect on retail – and how our shopping lives have forever been changed.

This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.

Yohe: What was the biggest impact that COVID-19 first made on retailers?

Lambert: I think it was just shifting and making sure that we focused on the customer experience and how to keep our customers safe when they were coming out into the stores. When they were doing necessary shopping, it was essential that we had a safe environment for them to come into and shop as best that we could. You saw plexiglass go up at the point of sale. We had different mechanisms that were going on, on the back end of the store, in how we deal with deliveries coming into the store. Boxes were sterilized with a spray. We wanted the employees to be in a safe work environment. And so, back-of-the-store store safety concerns were addressed as well.

Yohe: What about stocking issues?

Lambert: We had a lot of our employees working evenings and nights to stock the shelves so that they weren’t in the middle of the customers coming in when they were shopping. There were some shifts in how retailers stocked stores. It also kept the employees from being exposed to more customers during the day. We did a lot of different things regarding inventory on the store shelves. As you know, we suffered some during the pandemic with being able to fully stock our shelves at all times because of supply chain issues we were dealing with.

Yohe: And what did those COVID-19 related supply chain issues really involve?

Lambert: It really involved several things. It all actually started in the ports in California with some ships not being offloaded in a timely manner. We had trucking issues across the United States. COVID-19 impacted how goods were made and how they were shipped and the availability our stores had of receiving those shipments. It was not as standard as it was prior to COVID-19 hitting the country. We may have 10 trucks expected to come into a large retailer on any given day and four of them would arrive because that’s all of the goods that we’re available. So retailers were definitely struggling to make sure they were able to keep the shelves stocked.

Yohe: Have supply chain issues been resolved?

Lambert: By and large, yes. We are seeing that the store shelves are stocked more. We have a backlog of merchandise that was on backorder from that timeframe that has come in. Sometimes, we’ll be flooded with outdoor furniture shipments that had been on backorder, those types of things that we’re dealing with now on the front end that goes to the actual customer, and we are still working to this day. Retailers are operating a little bit of a thinner margin of stock. They are very resilient and respond to the trends that are going on in the supply chain. But they are having, I would say, razor thin margins of stock right now.

Yohe: Talk about how COVID-19 spurred the development of phone and email ordering, curbside pickup and home delivery.

Lambert: The retail industry had been offering a diversified approach to shopping for customers, such as online. We had continued growth of customer online shopping year after year. The holiday season showed those numbers every year. And many retailers were still looking for a way to offer goods to their customers and through the omni channel approach, and they were in the process of expanding that approach. But the COVID-19 pandemic really blended traditional brick and mortar store shopping with the convenience of online shopping.

It also really forced the retail industry to pivot and focus more on resources such as the buy online-pick up in store and the buy online-shipped to the store. Our brick and mortar retailers stepped up and started to offer curbside pickup. They developed contactless shopping so you can go online and order. It’s put into a locker and you are given a code to access your order. You can walk right out without having to go into the backend of the store, or interact with any employees in the store. So these emerging trends continue now to be normal for retail customers.

Yohe: How have West Virginia retailers balanced COVID-19 enhanced inflation when you have customers versus overhead?

Lambert: That is one thing that the retail industry continues to struggle with. As you might imagine, it’s very expensive to pivot a whole industry or when you are dealing with something like shifting from mainly brick and mortar customers to a lot of online shopping. The industries that really have benefited from this shift, you’re seeing warehousing, the delivery companies, they really have picked up their end of that situation and expanded.

So maybe in-store retail employment has gone down slightly. We see the shift in the jobs go to a different type of industry, where they are picking up the packages, they’re delivering them to the front door. So the retail industry in the landscape looks a little different now.

Auto Workers Strike May Ripple Into W.Va. Economy

The roughly 13,000 U.S. auto workers now on strike could affect West Virginia car dealers and customers in several ways.

Jared Wyrick, president of the West Virginia Auto Dealers Association, said striking workers representing all three Detroit automakers are targeting and shutting down plants.

“They’re targeting plants that make the more profitable vehicles, while minimizing the impact of the UAW strike fund,” Wyrick said. “They spared certain factories that produce the number one selling vehicles like the Ford F-150 and the Chevy Silverado and the RAM pickups. That leaves the union the option to make more damaging moves if the strike drags on.”

Wyrick’s association represents about 100 West Virginia car dealers. He said a prolonged strike will reignite an inventory challenge just now beginning to recover from pandemic supply chain issues.

“We were finally getting back to some normalcy, to pre-pandemic levels,” Wyrick said. “So, yes, this absolutely will exacerbate the problem.”

Labor and management remain far apart on proposed salary and benefit increases. The UAW demand is a 36 percent wage increase over four years. GM and Ford offered 20 percent and Stellantis, formerly Fiat Chrysler, offered 17 percent.

Wyrick said pay raises and higher car prices ultimately will come down on the backs of the consumer.

“They’re going to end up paying a good share of what this bargaining will end up being,” Wyrick said. “You will see an increase in prices based on what’s bargained and agreed upon.”

Wyrick said high interest rates are the largest impediment right now in selling vehicles, and a prolonged strike will push monthly payments even higher.