The Strawberry Wars: Can Kennewick Growers Cooperate?
An editorial plea for local strawberry growers and marketing agencies to standardize their pack and stabilize pricing before the season collapses.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
We do not pretend to be familiar with the ins and outs of the fruit marketing game, but we do believe that in adopting uniform grade and pack rules, the marketing agencies have taken one step that is absolutely necessary before the local strawberry crop can be successfully marketed. If the entire crop cannot be marketed under one brand, the next best thing is to see to it that a crate of extra fancy Kennewick or Richland strawberries means the same thing whether it bears the 'Big-Y' label, the 'Big-K' label, or no label at all. An inferior product is bound to meet with inferior prices; a few crates of junk under an extra fancy name cannot but have a demoralizing effect upon the entire season. Now that a uniformity of product has been agreed upon, it remains for the marketing agencies to see to it that the rules of grade and pack are lived up to by the growers. There is but one place to forestall such possibility and that is in the strawberry patch. If a dishonestly packed crate leaves the patch, the chances are nine to one that it will slip through to market, and such slips are costly. If the marketing agencies can get together on grade and pack, we know of no good reason why the same spirit of cooperation cannot be followed in the matter of price. If the berry market goes to pieces this year, let it be because of California or Hood River competition, not because of Kennewick competing against Kennewick.
“The marketing concern that deliberately cuts the price is no better than the grower who deliberately puts the culls in the bottom of an extra fancy hallock.”
Kennewick's historical identity is deeply rooted in the success of its fruit orchards and berry patches. This 1914 editorial captures a perennial regional tension: the struggle between individual competition and the collective necessity of maintaining a unified brand standard to survive in a volatile agricultural market.
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