Here’s some updates on tomato shipments from Southern California, as well as avocado shipments, which continue to show impressive growth in volume.
California vine-ripe round tomatoes and romas are now in peak volume from Southern California. This season, veteram tomato grower Harry Singh, Jr. and his family—along with exclusive marketer Oppy—celebrate 75 years of producing vine-ripes in Oceanside, CA. .
Priya Singh, general manager, is a third generation grower at the company that became known as West Coast Tomato Growers (WCTG), owners of the Oceanside Pole and Cal-Tom brands, in 2012. Oppy is shipping Oceanside Pole and Cal-Tom vine ripened rounds and romas produced by the Singh family into November.
Southern California tomatoes – grossing about $6300 to New York City.
Avocado Shipments
2016 is off to a good start for avocado shipments, both domestic and for imports. The coming fall shipping season is looking to be even better. From January through May, more than 1 billion pounds of avocados were shipped in the U.S. That is up from 883 million pounds for the same period a year ago.
In all, volume rose 16 percent in 2015 compared to 2014, but for fall, volume grew 21 percent — from 575 million pounds for September through December 2014 to 696 million pounds for the fall of 2015.
The increase was driven by an increase in imports from Mexico, which had its biggest year ever. Mexico was by far the largest source of avocados in 2015, shipping 1.7 billion pounds to the U.S. California was next, with 262 million pounds, followed by Peru with 100 million and Chile with 20 million pounds. Other countries shipped almost 4 million pounds.
Avocado shipments are increasing as consumption by American consumers continues to grow at a very fast pace. Avocado shipments seem to be breaking records nearly every year.
Total volume in the U.S. for 2015 was 2.14 billion pounds, an increase of 15 percent over the 1.85 billion pounds in 2014.
Some California avocado shipments should continue through August. Then the fall crop from Mexico starts ramping up.