End of an era: Van Well Nursery to close after 80 years

Van Well Nursery Inc., a family-owned business that has supplied fruit trees to orchardists across the country since the 1940s, announced last week that it will close later this year.

"We're all getting to be retirement age, and there's no one in the family to really take over," said Pete Van Well, the senior manager at the nursery. "We were going to wait a couple more years. That was always the plan, but then we decided with the way the industry is going ... it'd probably be a good idea to just go ahead and move on."

Van Well Nursery is one of the nation's largest suppliers of deciduous fruit trees. The company delivered its first crop of trees to local orchardists in 1946, according to a company news release.

In its heyday, the nursery produced and sold more than 1 million fruit trees annually, shipping them throughout the United States.

The business, which currently employs about 20 to 25 people, had transitioned into its third generation of family ownership. However, members of the fourth generation chose to pursue other careers.

With declining profits and no family successor in place, the company's board decided to close the business earlier than anticipated, Van Well said.

"Now would be a good time to retire and move on, and unfortunately, because of the financial outlook from the industry, there wasn't really anyone in the market for fruit tree and nurturing," he said.

Van Well said rising labor costs were a significant factor in the decision. The nursery relies heavily on hand labor, and many of its production processes cannot be automated.

Van Well also observed that the broader agricultural industry has been struggling. He said economic downturns in the industry tend to occur in cycles, but this latest downturn has lasted longer than usual. He said the industry is now in its fifth year of the current downturn.

Labor costs have increased over the years and remain one of the largest expenses in agriculture. For the nursery's customers, who are also looking to cut costs, purchasing new nursery trees is an expense that can be delayed, unlike necessities such as water and pesticides, Van Well said.

The recent increase in fuel prices tied to the U.S. conflict with Iran is the latest cost spike, but Van Well said it is not a significant factor in the nursery's closure. Rather, he said fuel and other operating expenses have steadily increased over the past several years while prices for apples, cherries and pears have declined.

As a result, sales of nursery trees have fallen as well, he said.

"We just thought, well, it's probably more prudent to go ahead and leave a little bit earlier than we had planned and also to still provide what we think is a very high quality product," he said. "We didn't want to have to start cutting corners."

When consumers enjoy varieties such as Granny Smith or Golden Delicious apples, nurseries like Van Well play a critical role in the production process. Because those apple varieties are hybrids, orchardists cannot simply plant seeds and produce identical fruit.

"We have to hand graft them," Van Well said. "So when they're about a foot high, we go in August, and we take a bud from the mother tree, the tree we would want it to be, and we actually have to insert that, it has to be hand grafted in, and then someone has to come behind and tie that."

The trees are planted and grown on two-year production cycles, he said.

Van Well Nursery introduced several apple varieties over the years, including Scarlet Spur Red Delicious and Gale Gala, described in the company's news release as "one of the first fully red-coloring Galas on the market."

"It's just a lot of labor, and we tried to raise prices as much as we could, but even then with the downturn in the industry it's really hard when people aren't making money in general to try to increase your price even though your inputs are increasing," Van Well said.

He said many businesses throughout the agricultural industry are struggling to remain profitable. As a result, the company's board, made up entirely of family members, decided it was time to close.

Van Well has worked for the company since 1993.

"This is our 80th year, so that's a little bit bittersweet," Van Well said.

Copyright 2026 Tribune Content Agency. All Rights Reserved.