ABSTRACT
Packing-houses and their shippers in producing areas are tied to wholesalers in consuming areas by the umbilical cord of transportation. While there are many ways in which fresh apples move from the producing area to consumers, a dominant force in the commercial apple marketing system is wholesalers. In contrast to packinghouses in producing areas which take heterogeneous lots of growers’ fruit and combine them into bulk standardized loads, wholesalers at the consuming end buy bulk loads and break these down into smaller lots tailored to the specific needs of retail outlets. The term “wholesaler” is used here rather loosely to describe entities which buy in bulk and break down loads into smaller lots for resale. The dominant carriers of fresh apples over land have been rail and truck. Rail has been able to hold its own in countries where producing areas are far from main consuming areas and highways are unreliable.
