Cherries have been the No. 1 produce ad item around the country for nearly a month — the weeks ended June 28, July 5 and July 12.
According to the USDA's Agricultural Marketing Service, 16,242 stores promoted red varieties of cherries the week ended July 12. The previous week, 19,944 stores had the fruit on ad. For the week ended June 28, 18,019 stores had cherries on ad.
For the week ended July 12, cherries were most popular — at least in terms of the number of stores doing promotions — in the Southeast. Here's the breakdown of how many stores in which region had red varieties of cherries on ad.
- Southeast — 4,609 (3,129 promoting rainiers)
- Northeast — 3,093 (2,269 promoting rainiers)
- Southwest — 3,074 (1,379 promoting rainiers)
- South Central — 2,429 (1,428 promoting rainiers)
- Midwest — 2,292 (2,544 promoting rainiers)
- Northwest — 609 (442 promoting rainiers)
Other hot commodities for the week ended July 12 were:
- yellow-flesh peaches (15,081 stores)
- rainier cherries (11,230)
- yellow-flesh nectarines (10,618)
- white seedless grapes (9,737)
- red seedless grapes (9,301)
Peaches are having an extended run near the top of the list of most widely promoted items, though most of the corresponding weeks in 2018 saw higher numbers of stores with the fruit on ad.
- Week ended May 31 — 13,276 (19,788 last year)
- Week ended June 7 — 15,517 (18,269 last year)
- Week ended June 14 — 14,365
- Week ended June 21 — 13,057
- Week ended June 28 — 14,762 (19,083 last year)
- Week ended July 5 — 15,811
- Week ended July 12 — 15,081