A 43% plunge in orange production in Florida is predicted by the USDA following the impact of Hurricane Idalia. Expect price increases for popular by products such as orange juice.
The USDA’s latest report, published in July, puts the state’s orange yields at 15.8 million 90 pound boxes.
Florida citrus growers have experienced many shortcomings. In 2022, Hurricane Ian brought excessive rainfall and wind damage, and the ever-present greening disease continued to stall harvests.
The industry’s resilience has been key to endure these challenges, however, this coming season’s outlook brings less-than-reassuring projections.
California pomegranates for the most part apparently dodged the bullet when Hurricane Hilary hit the West Coast several weeks ago.
Trinity Fruit of Fresno, CA reports this season’s fruit quality looks better than in previous years, with a little better size and yields.
The San Joaquin Valley experienced heavy rain and wind in August. Fortunately, Hilary was downgraded to a tropical storm before arriving in the central valley. Thus, the effects to the 2023 pomegranate crop appear to be minimal.
Trinity Fruit Co. of Fresno, CA began shipping in its proprietary Sweetheart varieties in early September, with Wonderful to follow in October and November.
Pom Wonderful of Los Angeles points out Hilary’s effects have been negligible thus far for the Wonderful variety. The grower, shipper will begin harvesting in early to mid-October. At John Vena Inc. in Philadelphia, the wholesale distributor will carry Wonderful pomegranates when peak season begins in October or early November.
Once the California pomegranate season finishes in December, the company will transition to counter-season fruit from Israel. In March, when the Israeli season typically ends, Vena will offer Wonderful pomegranates from Peru, where the season runs into June.
Vena notes the year-round availability of pomegranate is fueled by arils, as well as the country’s changing demographics.
Over 50% of the population has never had a pomegranate, so the growth potential is there, the company believes.
According to Circana Integrated Fresh multi-outlet data for the 52 weeks ending July 2, 2023, dollar sales for fresh pomegranates reached more than $160 million — a 16% increase over the previous year and 27.5% higher than two years prior. Unit sales grew more than 11%, and by volume increased more than 13% over the previous year.
The nation’s leading apple shipper, Washington state, has a 2023 crop estimated at nearly 160 million bushels and valued at more than $2 billion — 9% higher than last year, according to USApple, of Falls Church, VA. The nonprofit industry association reports Washington accounts for 63.8% of U.S. apple production and 67.5% of the value.
Due to favorable weather, Washington expects to ship nearly 130 million cartons of apples this year, according to the Washington Tree Fruit Association. This compares to nearly 100 million cases shipped last season.
The Skagit Valley Food Co-op in Mt. Vernon, WA., ships about a dozen varieties of Washington apples in the fall, with four varieties available year-round.
Washington’s fuji apple has the largest volume year-round due to its price, which is often $1.49 per pound and sometimes as low as 99 cents per pound. This compares with $3.49 to $3.99 for other varieties. The apples are all organic.
Washington is home to more than 30 varieties of apples — some of them year-round mainstays, some more experimental new varieties, and others that fall somewhere in between. Of these apples, 72% go to the fresh market, according to USApple.
The state’s most popular apples are gala, Honeycrisp, red delicious and fuji.
Sage Fruit Co., Yakima, moves it biggest volume with Honeycrisp, gala, fuji, granny smith and Pink Lady. The fruit shipper handles sales and marketing for five grower-packer-shippers in the Pacific Northwest.
PITTSBURGH – Stack AV recently announced the launch of its autonomous trucking business, which leverages its self-driving technology to improve efficiency and enhance safety in the trucking industry, while tackling supply chain challenges for its partners and their consumers.
With customers at its core, Stack AV is focused on revolutionizing the way businesses transport goods, designing solutions to alleviate long-standing issues that have plagued the trucking industry including driver shortages, lagging efficiency in uptime per vehicle, overarching safety concerns, high operating costs, and elevated emission levels.
By building safe and efficient autonomous trucking solutions, Stack AV is creating better and smarter supply chains for its partners, improving business outcomes for its customers, delivering goods to end-users faster, and ultimately moving the trucking industry forward.
“As consumer consumption patterns evolve, businesses increasingly need AI-driven, intelligent, and reliable supply chains,” said Bryan Salesky, Founder and CEO of Stack AV. “With our proprietary technology and expertise as well as the commitment from our long-term partner in SoftBank, we are confident we will revolutionize the trucking and freight industries by driving improvements in efficiency and safety and alleviating supply chain constraints for our customers, helping them reach their goals and advance their missions.”
Peter Rander, President of Stack AV said, “We could not be more thrilled to unveil our autonomous trucking business to the world. As global commerce continues to become increasingly interconnected, now more than ever businesses have a dire need for more reliable and efficient supply chains, especially in the trucking and freight industries.
Leveraging our advanced AI-powered autonomous driving systems, we will improve supply chains for our customers and optimize transportation routes and energy efficiency.”
Stack AV is backed by SoftBank Group Corp. (“SoftBank”) who is supporting the company with capital, resources, and deep expertise in AI to help accelerate its growth and technological developments.
“The transformative power of AI is undeniable and will have a significant impact on our society,” said Kentaro Matsui, Head of the New Business Office at SoftBank Group and Managing Partner at SoftBank Investment Advisers.
“The next decade will be defined by AI, where all social systems will be linked by this technology to solve the most complex societal issues. By applying the strengths of AI-powered technology to the trucking industry, Stack AV will fundamentally change the transportation of goods and supply chains across the globe.”
Headquartered in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Stack AV is led by Chief Executive Officer Bryan Salesky, President Peter Rander, and Chief Technology Officer Brett Browning. With over seven decades of combined experience, Stack AV’s executives are seasoned leaders in the development of complex, autonomy-enabled systems and have deep experience in robotics and AI. Stack AV has 150 employees across its headquarters and in 15 states with an innovative remote-work/co-working collaboration model, and is growing rapidly.
About Stack AV
Stack AV develops and builds autonomous trucking solutions to improve the safety and efficiency of modern freight and supply chain systems. Stack AV’s technology – coupled with an advanced approach to safe systems design and testing – is designed to maximize trucks’ uptime, optimize existing infrastructure and improve roadway safety. Stack AV is committed to driving the trucking industry forward by enabling smarter supply chains for its partners, allowing them to deliver goods to their consumers faster and more safely. To learn more, please visit https://stackav.com/.
Harvesting of sweet potatoes is underway in the South and although fewer acres are planted, good volume and quality shipments are expected.
Nash Produce LLC of Nashville, NC began digging its crop in early September and will continue through early November which is normal. The company reports overall sweet potato acreage will be down,
In 2022, U.S. sweet potato acreage was 132,200, down from 153,200 in 2021, according to USDA statistics.
Nash Produce has four kinds of sweet potatoes — covington, organic covington, murasaki and bonita.
Garber Farms, Iota, LA, has just started its sweet potato harvest. Then the curing process will take place, and shipments should begin in early October.
The growing, packing and shipping operation hopes for at least an average-size crop after last year’s smaller-than-normal harvest. It grows beauregard and orleans sweet potato varieties, with a goal of having year around loadings.
Matthews Ridgeview Farms, Wynne, ARK., has been harvesting a few weeks and expects finish in mid-October.
The company is looking for a good-quality crop this year on its beauregard and orleans sweet potatoes as well as on its organic product.
The Panama Canal Authority recently warned water-conserving measures will be in place for at least the next 10 months. As a result, global shipping companies have been urged to share transit plans at one of the world’s key maritime chokepoints.
An unprecedented drought this year, combined with the onset of the El Niño weather phenomenon, has resulted in a cut of draft restrictions for ships coming through its larger neopanamax locks by six feet. Transits also have been slashed by 20% to only 32 vessels a day.
These measures have resulted in ships backing up in significant numbers at either end of the canal. The Aug. 25 official total count was 129 ships, down from the peak of 165 earlier that month, but still 43% higher than the average.
The Panama Canal Authority has noted the restrictions would remain in place at least throughout the first half of 2024.
Container services and cruise itineraries tend to transit the canal with long advanced bookings. For bulk sectors, it is more ad hoc and with shorter notice, and it has been here the impact has been greater, where it might not be possible to obtain an advanced booking and therefore joining the queue is necessary.
The limits on transits have caused a vessel pile-up. According to some reports, there were recently 200 queuing, with wait times of up to 21 days.
While there are complex options, it’s noted ships greater than 12,000 TEUs, may choose to re-route through Suez. TEU is the industry term for a 20-foot equivalent unit.
For smaller containerships, which can still pass fully laden, a backhaul return to Asia via the Suez or the Cape with a slightly longer distance and time is another option liners will be looking at to reduce overall Panama demand while also soaking up capacity at a time where container fortunes are widely perceived to be on the wane through to at least the end of next year.
There has already been one cruise ship cancel its winter Panama season. Container carriers switching routes will be watched carefully by other sectors keen to get prized slots through the waterway in the coming months.
Some observers and logistics providers have warned goods needed for the Christmas shopping season might arrive late. Goods worth $270 billion – about 73% of the canal’s annual volume – are headed for the U.S. market, according to the CPA.
The travails at the canal are not having a notable lifting effect on container spot rates in the past two weeks. Drewry’s weekly World Container Index, published Aug. 27, showed rates from Shanghai to New York were down by $120 per feu (forty-foot equivalent unit).
The longer the situation persists the bigger the chances are of further freight rate increases and the likelihood that shippers will begin to divert cargo back to the US west coast ports and use rail to bring the cargo to its final destination.
Although an official forecast is yet to be released, the Northwest Pear Bureau is optimistic volume this season will meet the previous four-year average.
The NWPB reports the 2023 Northwest fresh pear crop could be in the 15.5 million carton range.
The 2022 crop was initially forecast in September last year at just over 16 million cartons but ended up at just over 14 million cartons, Moffitt said. Snow during pollination hurt yields and led to some fruit drop in 2022, resulting in one of the smallest crops in 20 years.
This year the harvest began for summer varieties like starkrimson and bartletts in early August, with growers starting to pick bosc, green and red anjou in early- to mid-September. This was soon followed by specialty pears like comice, seckel, forelle and concorde pears.
California walnut volume is predicted to 790,000 tons, up 5% from 2022, according to the USDA National Agricultural Statistics Service .
The forecast is based on 385,000 bearing acres, down 4% from 2022’s estimated bearing acreage of 400,000, according to a news release.
“The California walnut industry has increased its focus on providing handlers and growers the most accurate crop information by accelerating the collection of various data points,” Robert Verloop, CEO and executive director for the California Walnut Commission and Board.
While official final shipment, inventory and closeout figures for the 2022 crop year will be released in couple of weeks, preliminary figures indicate last year’s crop is virtually sold out, the release said.
“Last year, we were facing a completely different scenario with 130,000 tons in inventory brought on by the lingering effects of the COVID-impacted global marketplace and a record heat wave last September that negatively impacted the entire crop, which led to lethargic sales and record-low grower returns,” Verloop said.
“With minimal carryover from the previous crop year and favorable weather throughout the growing season, we’re optimistic about the new crop year,” Tim Sabado, CEO of Prima Noce, based in Linden, CA., said in the release. “The upcoming crop promises a return to the exceptional quality that defines California walnuts globally.”
Harvest begins in September and may extend into November due to the early season cooler temperatures, Sabado said.
The peer reviewed study found that when doctors and health-care providers “prescribed” fruits and vegetables, patients ate more produce, lost weight and experienced significant reductions in blood pressure.
Researchers studied over 3,800 people from low-income neighborhoods who received food vouchers through nine programs in 12 states. The participants received vouchers or cards worth $15 to $300 per month to buy more fruits and vegetables from farmers markets and grocery stores.
At the end of the study, adults reported eating an average of 0.85 additional cups of fruits and vegetables per day or 30 percent more each day. Children in the study ate 0.26 cups more or about 7 percent more per day. According to the study authors, the effect of more fruits and vegetables on blood pressure in adults was about half that of commonly prescribed medications, which is notable for a change in diet.
This new study complements previous studies examining produce prescriptions.
One study from Tufts University found that “prescriptions” for fruits and veggies would prevent 1.93 million cardiovascular events (such as heart attacks) and 350,000 deaths, as well as cut healthcare costs by $40 billion.
With only one in 10 of Americans eating enough produce each day, according to the Centers for Disease Control, the health community continues to look for ways to increase consumption of these nutrient-dense foods.
Studies and analyses on produce prescription program results show promise in their ability to improve diets and consumer health.
The study results also underscore the importance of consumers having access to more affordable and available fruits and vegetables, especially during periods of rising costs and inflation.
Consumer choice is a key Alliance for Food and Farming (AFF) message. The AFF encourages consumers to choose the fruits and vegetables they enjoy and are affordable and accessible for them but choose to eat more every day for better health and a longer life.
The first table grapes of the 2023-2024 Peruvian season should start in September, when the campaign normally starts in October, according to Agraria. This will be an earlier started compared to a year ago.
Cyclone Yaku in March resulted a lot of rainfall. which generated the proliferation of fungi in the vine plants on the northern Peruvian coast, which would cause a lower production of fruit in that area of the country.
A different situation can be seen in the Ica region, where the heat caused the bud to improve and advances the vegetative development of the fruit, so earlier grapes and higher production are also expected.
As Ica is the main producing region of table grapes in Peru and a higher production is projected, it is expected that the production (and export) of table grapes by Peru in the 2023-2024 campaign will be higher than the previous campaign.
There will be fewer table grapes in the North.
From January to mid-July of this year, table grape exports from Peru grew in volume 16 percent (close to 45,000 more tons) compared to the same period in 2022.
