Abstract
This study examines the characteristics of apple distribution through assemblers in Aomori prefecture from the viewpoint of management strategy and their roles affecting apple farm management. Many assemblers must ship high-quality apples, although they collect apples from farmers without enforcing quality standards. Therefore, they make various attempts to resolve the gap between the quality of apples collected and that of those shipped. One of the methods is the employment of brokers by assemblers to select excellent farmers, and another is the collection of high-quality apples from wholesale markets in farming areas. When shipping apples, assemblers make great efforts to avoid disadvantageous sales to both wholesale markets in consumption areas and supermarket groups. In particular, assemblers who collect the greatest quantities of apples from farmers and mainly ship them directly to supermarkets must make extra efforts to bridge the quality gap. In addition, most assemblers visit farmers distributed over a wide area to collect apples because farmers do not have sufficient labor to transport their crops. In this way, assemblers collect apples from farmers without imposing a quality standard and ship appropriate ones in terms of both quality and quantity to customers in consumption areas. Small-scale apple farmers in Aomori prefecture can sustain farming operations with the assemblers' labor supply for apple transport. A large amount of transport labor is needed daily, especially for harvesting bagged Fuji apples, the main variety in this region, and the assemblers' labor supply is indispensable for farmers to continue operations and to ship apples from April onward. In this way, the apple distribution system through assemblers in Aomori prefecture has been established as a way to resolve inconsistencies between collecting and shipping.
