Washington apple exports remained strong heading into the holidays and were nearly double that of last season as of mid-December.

“We’re real happy with the exports, no question about that. It’s reflective of the larger crop volume,” said Todd Fryhover, Washington Apple Commission president.

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Washington’s apple harvest of 138.6 million bushels is up roughly 33% over 2022-23 — the state’s smallest crop since 2009.

9.31 million cartons

The industry had exported more than 9.31 million cartons by Dec. 10, according to commission data.

So far, exports are up 96.3% over the 4.75 million cartons at the same point in December 2022.

“There’s need and along with that need is a tremendous amount of demand. So things are going real well,” Fryhover said.

“Things are moving in the right direction,” he added.

Roughly 29.5% of this season’s harvest has been exported.

About 31% of shipments were destined for Mexico and Canada, while 6.5 million cartons were exported offshore.

Mexico, the industry’s largest foreign target, has received 1.9 million cartons this season.

Taiwan was the second largest market, with about 1.8 million boxes as of mid-December, Fryhover said, and the vast majority of those were Fuji apples.

About 965,000 cartons were shipped to Canada.

The fourth-largest foreign market for the apple industry was Vietnam, and fifth was India, Fryhover said.

India lifted its 20% retaliatory tariffs on U.S. apples and other agricultural imports in September.

In the four years the tariffs were in place, apples from Turkey, Poland and Iran took control of India, and Washington’s share plummeted from 53% to 1% — a loss representing about $120 million.

Fryhover recently returned from a trade trip to India, and he said there’s a lot of excitement about Washington apples in cities such as New Delhi.

He said about 500,000 boxes have been shipped to India, up from roughly 6,100 the previous season.

“That’s a pretty spectacular increase in shipments,” Fryhover said.