California Christmas trees could be harder to find, more expensive this year. Here’s why
Don’t wait too long to get a Christmas tree this year. Supplies are tight and prices are up.
And you may have a hard time finding the tree you really want.
For artificial trees, “we anticipate that all retailers, regardless of location, will face reduced supply and increased price challenges this year,” said Jami Warner, Sacramento-based executive director of the American Christmas Tree Association. The group represents artificial tree suppliers.
Real farm-grown Christmas trees will be available across the country, but you may not get the height or species you prefer if you wait too long.
“Supply is tight,” said Tim O’Connor, executive director of the National Christmas Tree Association, which represents the growers.
It’s as though several of the crises that have plagued the country over the past few years have all come together for one Grinch-like performance in the Christmas tree world.
The artificial trees have often been stuck in the nation’s congested ports.
“We don’t know when they’re going to come in. It’s all floating in the ocean. We don’t know when it’s unloaded. We don’t know when it can get on a truck,” said Mac Harman, chief executive officer of Redwood City-based Balsam Hill, one of the nation’s largest artificial tree suppliers.
Are there enough Christmas trees?
The supply problems for artificial trees start at the ports. There have been long delays at the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, which handle about three-fourths of the West Coast’s market share for all goods and are the entry point for 40% of all U.S. shipping containers.
President Joe Biden last week took steps to get the port operating around the clock, but experts don’t see the supply chain returning to its normal state for some time.
The COVID pandemic has also affected the supply of artificial trees. Retailers traditionally don’t keep trees that don’t sell; they don’t want to store such big items for so long.
Last spring, as the pandemic sent the economy reeling, inventories of such trees dropped sharply, said Harman, whose company sells premium artificial trees.
Most artificial trees come from Asia, and are the victims of “the supply chain story you’re hearing now,” he said. He estimated his prices are up about 20%.
“The story is we can’t get the product from our manufacturing centers to our customers,” Harman said. “We’re gonna have a problem soon.”
Weather and economy
Real trees don’t have a problem with ports, since they’re grown in this country or Canada.
O’Connor noted that most tree growers have longstanding relationships with truckers. “They know how to truck trees,” he said.
But weather and the overall economy are affecting the availability of live trees on the West Coast. The trend toward less supply has some roots in the Great Recession of 12 years ago, which triggered a cutback in tree growing.
Since it generally takes 10 years to grow a good tree, “It was hard to put money in the ground then when you won’t get it out for 10 years,” said Marsha Gray, executive director of the Christmas Tree Promotion Board, which helps growers.
California consumers get most of their farm-grown trees from Oregon, the nation’s largest supplier.
This year in Oregon, record high temperatures caused many trees to suffer burns. The promotion board said that the best guess from major growers is that 10% to 20% of the Oregon tree supply may be affected.
Last year, Oregon’s Christmas tree growers cut and sold 3.44 million trees, down 27 percent from 2015, according to a U.S. Department of Agriculture study. The state had 31,124 acres growing Christmas trees, down 24% from 2015. The average price is up about 73% since then.
This story was originally published October 25, 2021 at 5:00 AM with the headline "California Christmas trees could be harder to find, more expensive this year. Here’s why."
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