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If you’re getting into the holiday spirit, this isn’t the year to put off getting a Christmas tree.
Short supply and rising prices from Pacific Northwest growers have left some lots already running low on the most popular and attractive trees, while many Bay Area charities that sold Christmas trees to raise money were unable to offer them this year.
“Our big trees went early. We’re now grinding down to the littler trees, and after this weekend there will probably be hardly anything left,” said Joe Territo, who runs a lot at Snell Avenue in San Jose. “I’ve talked to guys in Redding, Lodi, Vacaville, Pleasanton — they’re all in the same boat. Supply is down and demand is high. Unfortunately, that’s the way it is.”
Boy Scout Troop 224, which runs a Christmas tree lot in Lafayette on Mount Diablo Boulevard, has “seen double digit increases in pricing three years in a row,” said volunteer lot manager John Griscavage, which buyers so far have been willing to pay knowing it’s the troop’s only fundraiser.
Territo, who’s been selling trees for 43 years, said local prices are up 10 to 15 percent, which amounts to about $7 to $8 more this year for most trees but up to $20 more for the larger ones. The national average price for a tree last year was $75 a tree, according to the National Christmas Tree Association‘s annual survey.
The price hike didn’t deter Jeff Glass, 63, of San Jose, who came on Thursday — a little earlier than usual this season — to Territo’s, which he likes for the “great service” and was just happy he and his wife found “exactly what we needed” — a six-foot fir that fit snugly into their Subaru.
“I’m happy as a clam,” Glass said.
The reduced supply is rooted in an economic downturn a decade ago, said Doug Hundley, spokesman for the Denver-based Christmas Tree Association, which represents more than 700 farms and 4,000 affiliated businesses that grow and sell Christmas trees.
After years of oversupply, growers planted fewer trees in the 2008 recession, Hundley said. Because Christmas trees take eight to 10 years to reach marketable size, he said, those decisions are now being felt in the industry.
“Ten years later what we’ve got is a supply just barely meeting the demand,” Hundley said. Other factors also contributed, he said. Many tree farmers are retiring and fewer people are getting into the business to replace them. Labor and other costs have been rising fast. A Northwest dry spell killed off a number of saplings.
The tight supply mostly hits retail lots that offer the convenience of a ready-to-go tree close to home. For those willing to trek to places such as Santa’s Tree Farm and Village near Half Moon Bay and saw down their own tree, co-owner Natalie Sare assures that “we never had a year when we sold out.”
Tree lot retailers already were feeling pinched in recent years by competition from major national retailers such as Walmart and Home Depot with more purchasing power to secure supply, as well as the growing popularity of faux trees made of metal and plastic.
But those hardest hit by the reduced supply are the small local charitable groups that sell trees as fundraisers and account for about 10 percent of national sales, Hundley said.
“Those kinds of customers don’t carry as much clout when it comes to getting the trees,” he said.
The Scotts Valley Educational Foundation started selling Christmas trees about 15 years ago, raising as much as $30,000 a year to provide funding to keep the city’s school libraries open, said Derek Timm, the organization’s president. But with proceeds shrinking to about $7,000 last year, the foundation this year abandoned the Christmas tree fundraiser altogether, he said.
“We went from a very good fundraiser to not really making enough to justify keeping it open,” Timm said.
That, he said, had a “snowball effect” on a community that had rallied around the fundraiser.
“There’s been disappointment about that on all sides,” Timm said. “Kids are not picking up their volunteer hours, we’re having trouble fundraising to keep the libraries open, and families in town were kind of distraught over the fact that we didn’t have trees.”
There was a similar story at the St. Lawrence Academy in Felton, which had to abandon its Christmas tree fundraiser that funds the small private school.
Their former tree supplier was asking for orders as early as May before retiring last year, citing stress from the business, said Head of School Patrick Macy. The school was able to find another supplier but couldn’t pencil it out to justify the massive volunteer effort.
Jerry Klima, owner of ABC Tree Farms in Santa Clara, which has two dozen locations in California and farms in Washington and Oregon, said it’s tricky selling a product that takes so many years to be ready for the market.
“This business is always a bit of a roller coaster ride, with under or overproduction,” he said. “We do a lot of organic farming, and I have a lot less problem with organic farming vegetables than Christmas trees. They are there so long and you have to fight all these diseases for multiple years. Any mistake you make will show later. So that’s a big part of your problem right there.”
There are no hard numbers on tree production. The Christmas Tree Association’s survey estimated annual sales of 27.4 million trees for each of the last two years, which at an average price of $75 each would make it a $2 billion industry.
For growers, Hundley said it’s actually a good time. After years of oversupply followed by a long stretch where rising costs outpaced retail prices, tree farmers are finally seeing healthy prices.
“That’s going to encourage a lot more planting,” he said.
But they won’t be ready any time soon.
“It takes eight years,” Hundley said, “before we fully benefit from that.”
