Can you believe it’s the middle of fall? By now, many of you have made a plaid-clad visit to your local orchard, filling up your apple bags and Instagram stories. Time for the return of the Mac, and all your other favourite apple varieties.
We love an apple with lunch, baked in a dessert, or in a hot cider. Whatever way you slice it, there’s a lot of this fruit in Canada.
Marketed production of fresh apples totalled 347 125 tonnes in 2021, down 10.3% from 2020.
Also in 2021, there were 8.54 kilograms (retail weight) of fresh apples available per person in Canada.
There were 44,842 acres of fresh apples cultivated in 2021, the third straight year of increase, though down by nearly a third (-32.6%) from the 66,515 acres cultivated in 2000.
Nationwide, the 2021 Census of Agriculture counted 7,101 fruit and tree nut farms (including apple orchards and farms producing other fruits). British Columbia had 3,036 of them, including the 1,448 in the Thompson–Okanagan census region that outnumbered all of Ontario’s.
Combined, the Saguenay and Montérégie census regions accounted for over half of Quebec’s 1,470 fruit and tree nut farms.
As of June 2022, there were 972 retail markets, stores, road side stands, and mail order businesses across Canada selling fruits and vegetables—including the kiosk at your local orchard.
Year over year, Canadians paid 17.3% more for their apples in September 2022. However, prices have often been cheaper on a monthly basis around the prime picking months of September and October.
Farm cash receipts for fresh apples totalled nearly $248.2 million in 2021, down 2.4% from 2020.
Apples accounted for just over a fifth (20.5%) of all fresh fruit cash receipts in 2021, roughly in line with 2018 through 2020.
Contact information
For more information, contact the Statistical Information Service (toll-free 1-800-263-1136; 514-283-8300; infostats@statcan.gc.ca) or Media Relations (statcan.mediahotline-ligneinfomedias.statcan@statcan.gc.ca).