Here’s a glimpse nationally at shipping areas such as Florida spring vegetables, potatoes from Arizona and looking ahead a few weeks to peaches from New Jersey, as well as with Mexican grapes.
Florida vegetable shipments are still moving in good volume and nothing is probably providing more loading opportunities than sweet corn. Big volumes are expected through the Memorial Day weekend, May 23-25. In recent weeks Florida sweet corn shipments have exceeded 1 million crates per week!…..After the holiday, Florida corn will be declining, but South Georgia will start shipping corn in late May with much bigger volumes in early June.
South Florida watermelons have been commanding the best trucks – grossing about $4000 to New York City. That’s about 25% more than rates for Florida red potatoes and nearly 20% more than Florida veggies.
Arizona Potato Shipments
Arizona red potato shipments kicked off about a week ago and now the yellow and mini potato varieties will get going any day now. Most of the potatoes are grown and shipped from an area South of Phoenix in the Casa Grande area.
Mexican Grape Shipments
Since there is still a lot of imported Chilean grapes in the distribution pipeline, some Mexican shippers have delayed shipments for a relatively short period of time. Grapes imported from Mexico are expected to be similar in volume to a year ago with a little over 16 million boxes. The 2014 crop finished at 16.2 million boxes.
New Jersey Peach Shipments
Looking ahead several weeks, New Jersey peach shipments will get underway in July and continue into September.
New Jersey is the fourth largest peach shipping state in the country, with approximately 80 orchards on 5,500 acres.