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Commodity Updates
Keep up-to-date on how weather and other conditions across the country and the globe affect the quality, availability, and pricing of your fresh fruits and produce.
Avocados - Mexican shipments were up last week. This new crop fruit is lower in maturity; this means is will take longer to ripen and it will not darken as much upon ripening. Ripe fruit could still be green in color as the skin isn't mature enough for it to darken. Color is not an indication of ripeness, pressure is.
Blueberries - Availability has improved over recent weeks. Increased volumes are arriving from Chile as their new crop begins to ramp up. Quality is good overall.
Broccoli - Demand exceeds very limited supplies. Salinas is finishing up; Santa Maria continues to struggle with quality issues reducing their production to a fraction of "normal." Meanwhile, insufficient supplies are coming from Yuma to meet demand. This situation is expected to continue for several weeks.
Brussels Sprouts - Extremely short supply. Cool night time temperatures are ideal for Brussels sprouts; and the warm weather this summer was anything but ideal. This produced erratic sizing and the crop finishing up 2-3 weeks earlier than normal. Expect supplies to remain the same through end of December.
Cantaloupes - Quality is good; demand is very good. The desert finished packing last week. Offshore melons will be our source through May. Offshore growing areas had 4-6 inches of rain and this could affect arrivals in the next two weeks.
Cauliflower - Extreme demand-exceeds-supply situation; "growing gap" will continue for several weeks. Weather-related issues have resulted in the early end in Salinas with no supplies to pull from. Supplies should begin to trickle in from the desert regions in about 2 weeks. Even then, we will see little relief as supplies will ramp up slowly at first.
Red Grapes - Domestic seedless are finishing up.
Honeydews - The desert is down to very light supplies with only a few clean up fields which will be finished this week. Offshore dews are arriving in small volumes.
Kale - The transition from Salinas to Yuma has been a smooth one. Product is also being grown in Oxnard. Nice green color and texture is being reported from the new crop in Yuma. The market has been steady through the transition.
Iceberg Lettuce - Demand exceeds supplies. Although the official pull for the holiday came last week, supplies continue to be extremely tight to begin the week with all suppliers in Yuma. Escalated pricing is in effect on contract cartons and value added items. Production in Salinas, Santa Maria, and Huron has finished. There continues to be issues with quality and these issues are expected to continue throughout the rest of the year. Industry-wide defects include: seeder, light weights, small and irregular head size, puffiness, and insect damage. The weights on palletized lettuce has been ranging from 28-36 pounds.
Leaf Lettuce - Demand exceeds supplies and this will continue throughout the week. Industry-wide quality issue continue. Escalated pricing continues on all romaine items. Salinas and Huron are finished. Quality issues include: fringe burn, mildew damage, internal burn and insect damage.
Oranges - Cooler night time temps are bring on better natural color
to the oranges. Volumes will continue to be steady, if weather cooperates.
Pears - Washington D'anjou, Bosc, and Red Pear quality is good.
Strawberries - Overall volume remains light and demand is exceeding supply as California's growing regions continue to decline in production and Florida is not yet supplying enough strawberries to keep up with demand. We should see more volume coming from Florida week over week as we head into December. Fruit quality in California has improved some over recent weeks with the cooler weather in the southern growing regions.
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