Global Canned Fruit Hits The Wall As Growers Get Left Holding The Orchard

Scott Mathias
May 13
1 min read

Canned fruit is having a very unromantic moment. In California, Del Monte’s bankruptcy and cannery closures have left peach growers stranded, with USDA approving up to US$9 million to help remove trees after around 74,000 tonnes of cling fruit were left unsold. Pacific Coast Producers has picked up some volume, but roughly 50,000 tonnes still lacks a buyer.

The downturn in cannery operations has affected SPC Australia with fruit buying down 40%. Fresh Del Monte in Costa Rica has closed farms with the more than 850 workers loosing jobs. The USDA has also instigated a tree removal program affecting dozens of orchards.

New Zealand is also seeing its own version of the same squeeze. Heinz Wattie’s has not fully “closed fruit canning” as such, but it has cut Hawke’s Bay peach contracts, with multiple growers told their fruit is no longer needed. Wattie’s says demand for New Zealand-grown canned peaches has declined as shoppers choose cheaper imports resulting in nearly 20 affected orchards.

This is the deeper signal, however, with local processing infrastructure becoming the weak link in food security. Once a cannery or processing line disappears, growers cannot simply “pivot” to the next harvest. Trees, labour, contracts, machinery, supermarket pricing, imports and consumer habits all collide and the peach, once the quiet hero of the pantry, suddenly becomes a warning light for the whole food system.

Some good news is, Kiwi growers affected by recent McCain closures announcements in the Hawkes Bay are contemplating taking over the old McCain vegetable plant themselves. No further information is available at time of writing.

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