Washington Fruit Packer Ordered To Pay Grower For Underpricing
April 29, 2014 A Yakima, WA, judge has ruled that C.M. Holtzinger Fruit must pay $126,000 to a farming company for selling organic Braeburn apples for less than other packers sold the same fruit.
According to a story that appeared Saturday in the Yakima Herald-Republic, NCCS Farming has been sending some of the fruit from a 240-acre orchard near Royal City named Rancho Royale to Holtzinger Fruit for many years.
In 2009, the harvest of more than 4,000 bins of organic apples was split evenly by quality and quantity with two other packers. After sales, the growers netted $186, 000 and $214,000 from the two other packers, but just $59,000 from Holtzinger.
The judge agreed with most of the grower’s complaints, such as that Holtzinger didn’t store many of the apples in controlled atmosphere as long as they should have, or that the packer sold many of the apples as conventionally grown instead of organic.
Source: Yakima Herald-Republic
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