Early strawberries leave business desperate for workers

SNOHOMISH COUNTY, Wash. — Red, ripe strawberries are not good news for Snohomish County growers. The berry-picking season has come so early there aren’t enough workers or customers to take home the haul.

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Dianna Biringer says it doesn’t matter how delicious the strawberries growing on Biringer Farm’s nearly 40 acres in Arlington taste if there’s nobody to eat them.

"As much as we talk about it, they don't come out until families can come together," she explained. Dianna says that's usually not until mid-June, when school is out for the summer and the u-pickers come in droves. Unfortunately that may be too late this time.

“We opened May 21st,” Dianna told us -- that’s the earliest strawberry year Biringer Farm has ever had, and the previous two were early as well.

“We’ve been told by experts in the agricultural field that the whole month of April was consistently a higher degree than normal so they feel like it brought the crops on earlier,” Dianna said.

That means seasonal workers -- a lot of them teenagers still in school -- aren’t available to pick.

“We have right now, I think eight pickers today. And we need about 50 to 75 pickers.”

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The same thing happened last year and about 20-percent of the berries ended up rotting on the vine.

“This is my first real like job-job,” said Sam Arenz, who says she probably wouldn’t have gotten this job had the berries ripened when expected.

"Yeah [the shortage] is actually how I heard of it, my friend on Facebook, she was looking for people to pick," Sam explained.

If you’re interested in working at Biringer Farm, the family-owned business has set up a hotline with hiring information and working hours. That number is (425) 259-0255.

Cox Media Group