Mexican avocado imports by the U.S. are expected to experience higher volume this year than last.
Growers in Mexico will export 2.3 billion pound of avocados to the U.S. in 2020-21, up from just over 2 billion pounds during the 2019-20 season according to The Mexican Hass Avocados Importers Association.
Summer avocado shipments from California and Peru have given way to Mexican fruit, giving Mexico a 96 percent market share.
The Oppenheimer Group of Vancouver, British Columbia announced in October that it had acquired a 65 percent stake in Eco Farms of Temecula, CA, which has increased its year-round supplies of avocados.
The focus now is on Mexico, which is ramping up production and moving towards the peak of its 2020-21 season.
About half the business at Henry Avocado Corp. of Escondido, Calif., has been with restaurants and other institutions, which have cut back orders.
Overall shipments have been higher than last year because of lower prices and increased sales to retailers, but still nothing like they should have been due to the crash in foodservice business.
Calavo Growers Inc. of Santa Paula, CA will have about 20 percent more product from Mexico to sell from this year’s regular crop out of Mexico than last year.
Index Fresh Inc., Riverside, CA expects a crop 15 t 20 percent larger than any average crop since 2015.
More imports of Chilean grapes are expected this season due to favorable weather and abundant rainfall, according to a USDA.
Chilean table grape exports to all destinations are expected to reach 620,000 metric tons in 2020-21, a 1.6 percent increase compared with the previous year. The U.S. imports about 46 percent of Chile’s table grapes, followed in volume by China.
The USDA report state, “Rainfall was abundant, especially in the month of June and climatic conditions during the spring have been favorable, thus fruit producers are expecting higher production volumes.”
Chilean fresh apple exports will total 655,000 metric tons, a 3.9 percent increase compared with last season, while pear exports are projected to decline by 4.3 percent to 111,000 metric tons because of a decline in pear planted area.
Grape expectations
Area planted to table grapes in Chile dropped by 4.9 percent in the 2020-21 season, and now totals about 113,000 acres.
Even so, the report said Chilean grape production will remain unchanged from last season and total 780,00 metric tons. The largest drops in table grape planted area were 11.8 percent in the Atacama region and 14.1 percent in the Metropolitana region.
“Table grape production and exports has become very competitive due to the increase in production and exports from Peru, and demand for new varieties of table grapes in destination markets,” the report read.
Varieties like red globe and flame seedless have low margins, and growers have replaced acreage of those varieties with newer grape varieties or alternative crops.
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The Hass avocado association Prohass of Peru expects Hass exports could increase about 10 percent next year
Website Agraria reports exports in 2021 could rise to about 400,000 metric tons (MT), up from the 365,000 MT exported this year. The crop for 2020 marked a 26 percent increase from the previous year, which was a 15 percent decline.
The increase in 2020 is due to new orchards coming into production and maturing. In 2020 around 4,942 acres of production were added onto the 79,074 acres already planted, and more are expected to be planted next year.
The new hectares are concentrated in the north of the country, in the Olmos Irrigation project.
Estimated damage to the Honduran banana industry from Hurricanes Eta and Iota has been lowered since hitting the Central American country just two weeks apart in November.
An industry representative reports only around 9,143 acres of plantations have been damaged or lost due to flooding, down from the original estimate of 19,768 acres.
The Association of Independent Banana Producers reports preliminary estimates showed Eta and Iota had impacted 6,227 acres of plantations in the key Sula Valley region, which lies along along the Aguán River. This equates to more than $55 million in losses.
In addition, multinational Chiquita has reportedly lost 2,965 acres.
Bananas are Hondura’s second-largest export, generating more than $500 million a year. The country ships primarily to the U.S. and Europe.
Plant City, FL – International grower and year-round marketer of strawberries, blueberries, blackberries and raspberries, Wish Farms, is adding acreage to its Florida strawberry farm operation.
The purchase adds just over 800 acres of land, around 600 of which will be designated for farming. The remainder is natural wetlands, which will be left undisturbed for biodiversity and environmental sustainability.
While the farm is over 90% of the popular and successful Sweet Sensation variety, the company is always on the hunt for the next best tasting strawberry. Several rows are dedicated to 100 new variety and seedling trials. Nearly seven acres have been planted with the highly anticipated white strawberry. Wish Farms has branded them Pink-A-Boo Pineberries.
“I believe there will be strong demand for Pink-A-Boos in the coming years, and this land will allow us to expand that program without having to reduce our red strawberry acreage,” said Owner Gary Wishnatzki.
Wish Farms is farming 55 acres of it this coming season, with a gradual ramp up of usage in each season following.
About Wish Farms:
Founded in 1922, Wish Farms is a fourth-generation, family operated company. As a year-round supplier of strawberries, blueberries, blackberries and raspberries, it grows both conventional and organic varieties.
U.S. surging imports are fueling record high freight costs and logjams at seaports, but transportation executives expect the rally to lose steam with a second wave of Covid-19 restrictions.
Reuters news agency reports container shipping companies got stung late last year and early this year when the pandemic halted trade around the world, and they question whether the U.S. import boom can be sustained.
“Let’s not get carried away,” Rolf Habben Jansen, chief executive of Germany’s Hapag Lloyd, was quoted as telling reporters. “This is just a spike that no one has foreseen in an unusual period. There will be a correction to that.”
U.S. consumer confidence ticked up in September, when retail sales accelerated. Still, consumers are eating through savings, layoffs are mounting and the country just set a record for new COVID-19 infections.
“Everything depends on the demand and how the second wave of COVID affects the world economy,” Aristides Pittas, CEO of shipping company Euroseas, said at a Capital Link virtual event.
In recent weeks, the cost of transporting goods from Asia to the United States – one of the world’s biggest retail markets – topped $4,500 per 40-foot container unit (FEU), the highest recorded level, data from S&P Global Platts Containers showed.
“We are sold out. The ships are 100 percent full. The containers are 100 percent full. You can’t get a container,” Jeremy Nixon, CEO of Japanese container group Ocean Network Express (ONE), said at a recent International Chamber of Shipping virtual event.
Inland exporters in the U.S. and several European countries, as well as Asia are being affected by a container shortage, reports Seatrade Maritime News.
U.S. Federal Maritime Commission (FMC) chairman Michael Khouri emphasized the issue of shipping lines not supplying containers to agricultural exporters inland in the U.S.
“Some ocean carriers, not all, have stated that they will no longer reposition empty containers to the U.S. interior agricultural areas. Instead, they are expediting empties back to Asia,” he said. “This abandonment of a significant U.S. export industry, the American agricultural industry, is shutting them out of global markets,” he told the virtual Global Maritime Conference.
The FMC is looking at possible actions it could take.
“We are looking into all potential responsive actions, including a review of whether such ocean carriers’ actions are in full compliance with the Shipping Act and more specifically the various “Prohibited Acts” sections of the Act,” said Chairman Khouri.
Research by FraunhoferCML and Container xChange shows the shortage is being exacerbated by the lengthy periods empty boxes spend in depots, an average of 45 days. In China and the U.S., the number of days empty containers spend in depots is considerably higher at 61 to 66 days.
Meanwhile, Hapag-Lloyd, a global leader in container shipping, has stopped accepting 40- foot reefer container booking for empty pick-up from depots in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Hungary and the Czech Republic until the end of the year. In Hamburg, it has also stopped container booking for empty pick-up for 40-foot GP units until the end of the year.
“Our aim is to support all confirmed export bookings but it might come to booking cancellations in individual cases.” “We do our utmost to avoid such cases and to serve all our customers as best as possible. We expect the situation to remain extremely tight over the next weeks,” Hapag-Lloyd said in a customer advisory.
Florida tomato shipments are increasing with improved weather, although a slow start to the season was due to Hurricane Eta.
Planted acreage and the mix of varieties should be similar to 2019. Round slicer or beefsteak tomatoes account for almost 70 percent of the crop, with plum/romas, grape and cherry tomatoes comprising most of the rest.
Florida has about 50 commercial tomato growers, all together creating a nine-month season. The tomato season in Northern Florida begins in early October, as the harvest works its way down the peninsula throughout the fall and winter.
The harvest then heads back up the peninsula to central Florida in the spring and to northern Florida in the early summer, usually ending by the Fourth of July.
West Coast Tomato, Palmetto, Fla., reports it began harvesting in late October.
The company has a packing house in Palmetto, with farms in Manatee County in central Florida and Immokalee in southwest Florida.
The USDA reports the value of Florida’s tomato production was $425.9 million in 2019 compared to $344.1 million in 2018.
That’s an $81.8 million increae while at the same time, farmers planted 2,000 fewer acres of tomatoes, from 29,000 acres in 2018 to 27,000 acres in 2019.
However, Category 5 Hurricane Michael slammed into the Florida Panhandle in October 2018, destroying tomatoes about to be harvested.
Farmers yielded 280,000 pounds of tomatoes per acre in 2018, compared to 300,000 pounds per acre in 2019.
Looking at the 2020 calendar year’s winter, spring and early fall harvesting seasons, the state shipped 35 million pounds of tomatoes through November 18, compared to 68.7 million pounds during the same time frame in 2019.
Imports of fresh produce remain strong as container volumes at PhilaPort’s Packer Avenue Marine Terminals are up 5 percent, maintaining an eight-month surge.
The increase at the Port of Philadelphia leaves it as the only East Coast port to grow cargo volumes during the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a news release.
“We are extremely proud of our results,” Jeff Theobald, executive director and CEO of PhilaPort, said in the release. “This proves that the infrastructure work we have done, in conjunction with the hard work of our longshoremen, terminal operator, Greenwich Terminals, and commercial support from Holt Logistics, is already paying off.”
The Packer Avenue Maine Terminal handles a variety of cargoes, but is known for handling and distributing refrigerated cargoes.
Leo Holt, president of Holt Logistics, said the company is on track to reach double-digit growth in refrigerated cargo volume this year.
“Consumer demand for fresh fruits and vegetables remains at an all-time high,” Holt said. “We remain ready to meet this demand and provide a safe and efficient supply chain for our clients.”
A project to deepen the Delaware River main channel is complete.
“And now that we have this and other major infrastructure improvements in place, developers are taking notice.” Sean Mahoney, director of marketing at the port, said. “They are continuing their investments in new distribution warehousing in South Jersey and Lehigh Valley.”
