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I was in Chicago early Friday (June 14) when the first two loads of cherries arrived at the Chicago International Produce Market (CIPM) from Washington state. Cherry shipments have gotten off to a slow start, but should really be picking up in the days ahead.
The truckers were paid a gross freight of $4,500 for the run originating out of the Yakima Valley. The f.o.b. worth of the load of cherries was approximately $125,000!
There have been some concerns relating to weather factors causing cracks in Washington cherries this season. However, these loads of early variety Chelan cherries had decent quality. The more popular Bing variety of cherries should start shipments the week of June 24th.
If you haul produce and plan on loading Washington cherries, continue to check what’s being put into the truck. Just because this stone fruit had good quality, there’s not guarantee this cracking will not show up in future loads.
Volume on Washington cherries in increasing and should hit a peak around June 26 -28, just in time for Fourth of July deliveries.
Shipments should continue into August.
Washington also continues to ship late season apples and pears from both the Yakima and Wenachee valleys. Although not as attractive an item, the state’s Columbia Basin is still loading potatoes.
Columbia Basin potatoes – grossing about $4100 to Chicago.
Yakima valley apples and pears – about $6500 to New York City.
One of every three bites of food comes from plants pollinated by honeybees and other pollinators. Yet, major declines in bee populations threaten the availability of many fresh ingredients consumers rely on for their dinner tables.
To raise awareness of just how crucial pollinators are to our food system, the University Heights Whole Foods Market store temporarily removed all produce that comes from plants dependent on pollinators. They pulled from shelves 237 of 453 products — 52 percent of the department’s normal product mix.
Products removed included apples, onions, avocados, carrots, mangos, lemons, limes, honeydew, cantaloupe, zucchini, Summer squash, eggplant, cucumbers, celery, green onions, cauliflower, leeks, bok choy, kale, broccoli, broccoli rabe and mustard green.
To help support honeybee populations, for every pound of organic summer squash sold at Whole Foods Market stores June 12-25 the company will donate 10 cents to The Xerces Society for pollinator preservation.
“Pollinators are a critical link in our food system. More than 85 percent of earth’s plant species — many of which compose some of the most nutritional parts of our diet — require pollinators to exist. Yet we continue to see alarming declines in bee numbers,” Eric Mader, assistant pollinator conservation director at The Xerces Society, said in a press release. “Our organization works with farmers nationwide to help them create wildflower habitat and adopt less pesticide-intensive practices. These simple strategies can tip the balance back in favor of bees.”
Whole Foods Market offers more ways to “bee part of the solution” at www.wholefoodsmarket.com/sharethebuzz.
Fresh produce prices will increase 3.5% to 4.5% due to inflation this year, according to the latest USDA retail price forecast.
That compares to 2% price drop in 2012 for all fresh produce.
The Economic Research Service, a part of the USDA, report retail fresh fruit prices for 2013 are predicted to rise 3% to 4% in 2013, after 1% inflation in 2012 and 3.3% higher prices in 2011. With fresh fruit prices decreasing .5% in April, the USDA reported the fresh fruit index is up 1.4% from the same time a year ago.
The Department of Commerce in April reported the average retail price per pound of red delicious apples was $1.33 per pound, up seven cents per pound from April 2012. Retail navel orange prices were 98 cents per pound in April, up from 91 cents per pound the same time a year ago. Retail banana prices, at 60 cents per pound in April, were unchanged from a year ago.
Fresh vegetable retail prices are predicted to rise from 4% to 5% in 2013, after a 5.1% decline in retail prices in 2012 and a 5.6% gain in 2011.
The fresh vegetable index dropped 2.7% in April, but prices were still up 4.6% compared with the same time in 2012. The average retail price of tomatoes in April was $1.46 per pound, up from $1.39 per pound in April 2012.
The consumer price of all food consumed at home in 2013 is forecast to climb 2.5% to 3.5%, the same forecast range as food consumed away from home.
Cats are very controversial animals.
It’s amazing how cats can bring out the worst in some people. For some strange reason cats are not a “neutral” animal. Everyone seems to have a definite opinion of cats. They are either liked or intensely disliked. You could see a yak walking down the street and when someone said “Hey look there goes a yak” the response would be a shrug of the shoulders and a comment like “so what, yaks are yaks.”
However, you can see a cat cross the street and make the comment “Look a cat,” and someone will almost always respond with a death threat for the cat. There are many articles written about why people hate cats and almost all are written by cat lovers. They all seem to miss the point and many attribute the dislike of cats to some primal “fear of cats.”
Fear could not be further from the truth. Most cat haters derive their dislike of cats from experience with them. Cats are not very trainable. You never see a duck hunter going out with his retriever cat to bag some mallards. You never see a fetch cat get the morning newspaper, or see a sign that says “Beware Watch Cat.”
Cats have an attitude. They are demanding and tend to ignore any command you give them. Come to think of it, so do most wives.
On the other hand a friend of mine says they are just stupid and don’t have the capacity for learning commands and spoken words like dogs do.
Cats don’t like water and most humans do. This may have something to do with it. You can always take a dog out boating. Dogs love to swim and play in the water. Cats on the other hand, almost never bathe. They sit around and lick themselves. I’m sorry, licking yourself is no substitute for a good soaking bath. John S. Nichols said, “Cats aren’t clean, they’re just covered with cat spit.”
On top of that, they cough up large slimy hair balls. You would think that cats would learn that eating your own hair makes you barf, but no,they keep doing the same thing and expecting different results. Sort of like politicians.
Women seem to like cats more than men do. Maybe they have more in common with cats than with dogs. After all, I don’t know of any women who are good at fetching a downed bird.
Dogs are very grateful animals. They will wag their tail to show satisfaction and they will eat just about anything you give them. Cats are no where near as amiable.
Cats wag their tail to show you they are annoyed, and they quite often turn down the same food they just ate four hours ago. Cats are not reliable sniffers. This may be the reason you never see an officer walking around an airport with his drug sniffing cat. Cats get away with more.
If the cat took a dump on your wife’s favorite rug it would be no problem. You would hear comments like “poor thing, you must be feeling bad.”
But if you just happen to spill some barbeque sauce or beer on the same rug all hell would break loose. Just what is it about these worthless cats that deserves this special treatment? Cats are just not very smart. A cat will whine and want to go outside on a cold raw day only to whine and want back inside 10 minutes later. Then in an hour or less the stupid cat will forget how raw and cold it was and want back outside again.
In my opinion cats bring out the empathy in most right-brained people. Cats, being basically worthless, bring out an unconscious empathy for such a stupid creature. A lot of people are also like that. Not all cats are cast from the same mold. Some cats have an identity crisis and even think they are dogs.
There is no greater cat hater than a cat that thinks it’s a dog, sort of like reformed smokers. Now don’t get me wrong. Not all cats are worthless. Some cats are very good mousers and ratters. Outdoor cats are preferred by most ranchers and farmers for that very reason. I guess most of us guys can learn to tolerate
Larry Oscar is a graduate from the University of Tulsa and holds a degree in electrical engineering. He is retired and lives with his wife on a lake in Oklahoma where he brews his own beer, sails, and is a member of numerous clubs and organizations.
Overweight trucks legally transporting produce into the USA from Mexico might be possible, if the state of Texas eases some rules and regulations. The state and some others see a benefit of easing border congestion.
The Texas House of Representatives recently passed legislation to create an “overweight corridor” at the USA -Mexico border, and the Texas Senate is expected to vote on it soon.
The proposed corridor, from the Anzalduas Bridge to the Pharr/Reynosa Bridge, would be an area where Mexican trucks carrying fresh produce would be able to enter the U.S. even if they were overweight. Trucks would then offload their extra weight at a U.S. cold storage facility.
A Mexican truck, under current law, carrying produce that weighs too much, faces a stiff fine if it crosses into the USA.
Currently, trucks are weighed on the Mexican side of the border, and extra product is typically offloaded there if the truck is overweight. This procedure delays truck movement at the border and exposes perishable fruits and vegetables to the elements as it waits for another truck to pick it up.
Trucks that are overweight would be charged a fee, under the proposed law, which is much smaller than the current fine. The big rig would then be allowed to proceed to a cold storage facility in the overweight zone’s boundaries.
Arizona already has a similar law.
Funds from the overweight fees would be used to maintain the roads that will be carrying the heavier loads.
Touting fresh U.S. blueberries and California strawberries as key ingredients, Wendy’s restaurants are again offering berry almond chicken salads.
The fast food restaurant chain plans to buy 2 million pounds of strawberries and 1 million pounds of blueberries from now through September to meet customer demands for the seasonal salad, according to a news release from the Dublin, Ohio-based company.
Wendy’s officials hinted in the release that unseasonable weather in berry growing regions of the U.S. had an effect on the timing of the reintroduction of the berry almond salad.
“Thank goodness berries are ripening on the vine — at last,” Derek Detenber, Wendy’s vice president of brand management, said in the release.
The the salads include 11 types of field greens, in addition to fresh berries, providing a total of three servings of vegetables and one serving of fruit, according to the release. As with its other fresh produce items, Wendy’s employees slice fresh strawberries for the salads at individual restaurants.
Salads have been on the menu at Wendy’s for almost 35 years, with the chain selling more than 100 million salads in the U.S. in 2012, according to the news release. In 2012 Zagat rated Wendy’s salads as No. 1 in the fast food category, beating out Panaera, Chipolte and Subway.
Months after talks over a new site for the Hunts Point Terminal Market broke down, the market’s vendors have sued the City of New York.
Hunts Point is the world’s largest wholesale terminal produce market and thousands of refrigerated big rigs deliver fresh produce to it daily, for distribution throughout New England and much of the East Coast.
On April 22, the Hunts Point Terminal Produce Cooperative Association sued the city and its Business Integrity Commission, according to court documents filed in Bronx Supreme Court.
The association claims in the suit that the Business Integrity Commission, which oversees many activities at Hunts Point, forced produce wholesalers to hire an unqualified consultant to review the association’s public safety department.
A no-bid contract was issued to Long Island-based Global Consulting LLC, which, the suit argues, not only was unqualified for the job but was run by principals with “checkered law enforcement histories.”
The work Global Consulting did for the association was “superficial” and consisted largely of documents provided by the association itself.
The association is suing the City and the Business Integrity Commission for $500,000.
The lawsuit comes at a time when talks between Hunts Point’s produce vendors and the City over construction of a new terminal market have broken down.
In a January meeting, the market board rejected a city offer to amend its existing lease.
Talks are not expected to resume until 2014, when a new mayor enters office.
Rehrig Pacific Company, a market leader in logistics & supply chain management, reusable transport packaging, and environmental waste & recycling solutions, is pleased to announce the launch of their new GMA Rackable Plastic Pallet.
The GMA Rackable Plastic Pallet is the latest in Rehrig Pacific’s supply chain solutions. “We’ve engineered the GMA Pallet as a result of customizing innovative products and solutions that help our customers achieve a lower cost-per-trip, improve sustainability, and ultimately provide efficiency in every aspect of the supply chain,” said Jerry Koefelda, General Manger for Rehrig Pacific Company.
The new GMA Pallet is 100% recyclable and made from a high-density polyethylene resin using high-pressure injection molding that prevents moisture and bacteria absorption. The GMA Pallet meets current FMSA and ePedigree traceability standards, providing the ability to track and trace product movement throughout the supply chain. The precise monitoring system tracks temperature conditions, shock and vibration to lower the risk of liability due to product damage or loss.
About Rehrig Pacific Company
Rehrig Pacific has been helping customers find better ways to transport and store their products for 100 years. Founded in 1913, Rehrig Pacific has become a world-leading provider of logistics & supply chain management, reusable transport packaging, and environmental waste & recycling solutions. In addition to roll-out carts, recycling bins and commercial containers for the waste & recycling collection industry, Rehrig Pacific also manufactures plastic pallets and containers servicing the agriculture, bakery, beverage, dairy and materials handling industries. Headquartered in Los Angeles, Calif., Rehrig Pacific serves customers with manufacturing and service locations throughout the United States and Mexico in addition to sales offices in South America and Europe.
Press Release: Rehrig Pacific Co.
Photo: Courtesy Vidalia® Onion Committee
Shipments of New Jersey-grown peaches should get underway in early July, a little later than last year. Good quality and quantity are being predicted, with loadings lasting through mid-September. More volume is seen this season since some trees planted three to five years ago are coming into production. (more…)
Potential loads for cherries have taken a hit in the Northwest due to an April frost and heavy May rains.
Estimates are now at 17 million boxes, down from 18.6 million boxes.
Loadings will be adversely affected the most on early varieties like chelans and early bings.
Caution is urged when you are at the loading dock and be on the look out for splitting in cherries and other issues.
Shipments are underway, but expected to be lighter than normal. Volume should be decent within a couple of weeks for deliveries to retailers for the Fourth of July holiday. Good volume and much better quality is seen during the month of July.
California cherry shipments are on the downside and this should result in good demand for fruit available in the Northwest, especially with its current light volume.
Oregon Cherries
Hood River cherry shipments in Oregon are expected to start around July 15th and should continue through August. Good volume and quality are forecast.
California Fruit
California’s Watsonville district should have good strawberry volume for shipments leading up to the Fourth of July holiday. The same can be said for stone fruit loadings originating out of the San Joaquin Valley.
New Jersey Blueberries
New Jersey’s blueberry shipments should start this week with good volume heading into the Fourth of July. Good quality should reduce your chances of claims or rejected loads.
Georgia Sweet Corn
Georgia sweet corn loadings, along with a number of mixed vegetables should make for good loading opportunities. There’s also Fort Valley peaches and Vidalia onions. Quality on all these items is now generally good.
South Georgia mixed vegetables – grossing about $3200 to Boston.
San Joaquin Valley stone fruit – grossing about $6900 to Atlanta.
I was in Chicago early Friday (June 14) when the first two loads of cherries arrived at the Chicago International Produce Market (CIPM) from Washington state. Cherry shipments have gotten off to a slow start, but should really be picking up in the days ahead.
The truckers were paid a gross freight of $4,500 for the run originating out of the Yakima Valley. The f.o.b. worth of the load of cherries was approximately $125,000!
There have been some concerns relating to weather factors causing cracks in Washington cherries this season. However, these loads of early variety Chelan cherries had decent quality. The more popular Bing variety of cherries should start shipments the week of June 24th.
If you haul produce and plan on loading Washington cherries, continue to check what’s being put into the truck. Just because this stone fruit had good quality, there’s not guarantee this cracking will not show up in future loads.
Volume on Washington cherries in increasing and should hit a peak around June 26 -28, just in time for Fourth of July deliveries.
Shipments should continue into August.
Washington also continues to ship late season apples and pears from both the Yakima and Wenachee valleys. Although not as attractive an item, the state’s Columbia Basin is still loading potatoes.
Columbia Basin potatoes – grossing about $4100 to Chicago.
Yakima valley apples and pears – about $6500 to New York City.
One of every three bites of food comes from plants pollinated by honeybees and other pollinators. Yet, major declines in bee populations threaten the availability of many fresh ingredients consumers rely on for their dinner tables.
To raise awareness of just how crucial pollinators are to our food system, the University Heights Whole Foods Market store temporarily removed all produce that comes from plants dependent on pollinators. They pulled from shelves 237 of 453 products — 52 percent of the department’s normal product mix.
Products removed included apples, onions, avocados, carrots, mangos, lemons, limes, honeydew, cantaloupe, zucchini, Summer squash, eggplant, cucumbers, celery, green onions, cauliflower, leeks, bok choy, kale, broccoli, broccoli rabe and mustard green.
To help support honeybee populations, for every pound of organic summer squash sold at Whole Foods Market stores June 12-25 the company will donate 10 cents to The Xerces Society for pollinator preservation.
“Pollinators are a critical link in our food system. More than 85 percent of earth’s plant species — many of which compose some of the most nutritional parts of our diet — require pollinators to exist. Yet we continue to see alarming declines in bee numbers,” Eric Mader, assistant pollinator conservation director at The Xerces Society, said in a press release. “Our organization works with farmers nationwide to help them create wildflower habitat and adopt less pesticide-intensive practices. These simple strategies can tip the balance back in favor of bees.”
Whole Foods Market offers more ways to “bee part of the solution” at www.wholefoodsmarket.com/sharethebuzz.
Fresh produce prices will increase 3.5% to 4.5% due to inflation this year, according to the latest USDA retail price forecast.
That compares to 2% price drop in 2012 for all fresh produce.
The Economic Research Service, a part of the USDA, report retail fresh fruit prices for 2013 are predicted to rise 3% to 4% in 2013, after 1% inflation in 2012 and 3.3% higher prices in 2011. With fresh fruit prices decreasing .5% in April, the USDA reported the fresh fruit index is up 1.4% from the same time a year ago.
The Department of Commerce in April reported the average retail price per pound of red delicious apples was $1.33 per pound, up seven cents per pound from April 2012. Retail navel orange prices were 98 cents per pound in April, up from 91 cents per pound the same time a year ago. Retail banana prices, at 60 cents per pound in April, were unchanged from a year ago.
Fresh vegetable retail prices are predicted to rise from 4% to 5% in 2013, after a 5.1% decline in retail prices in 2012 and a 5.6% gain in 2011.
The fresh vegetable index dropped 2.7% in April, but prices were still up 4.6% compared with the same time in 2012. The average retail price of tomatoes in April was $1.46 per pound, up from $1.39 per pound in April 2012.
The consumer price of all food consumed at home in 2013 is forecast to climb 2.5% to 3.5%, the same forecast range as food consumed away from home.
Cats are very controversial animals.
It’s amazing how cats can bring out the worst in some people. For some strange reason cats are not a “neutral” animal. Everyone seems to have a definite opinion of cats. They are either liked or intensely disliked. You could see a yak walking down the street and when someone said “Hey look there goes a yak” the response would be a shrug of the shoulders and a comment like “so what, yaks are yaks.”
However, you can see a cat cross the street and make the comment “Look a cat,” and someone will almost always respond with a death threat for the cat. There are many articles written about why people hate cats and almost all are written by cat lovers. They all seem to miss the point and many attribute the dislike of cats to some primal “fear of cats.”
Fear could not be further from the truth. Most cat haters derive their dislike of cats from experience with them. Cats are not very trainable. You never see a duck hunter going out with his retriever cat to bag some mallards. You never see a fetch cat get the morning newspaper, or see a sign that says “Beware Watch Cat.”
Cats have an attitude. They are demanding and tend to ignore any command you give them. Come to think of it, so do most wives.
On the other hand a friend of mine says they are just stupid and don’t have the capacity for learning commands and spoken words like dogs do.
Cats don’t like water and most humans do. This may have something to do with it. You can always take a dog out boating. Dogs love to swim and play in the water. Cats on the other hand, almost never bathe. They sit around and lick themselves. I’m sorry, licking yourself is no substitute for a good soaking bath. John S. Nichols said, “Cats aren’t clean, they’re just covered with cat spit.”
On top of that, they cough up large slimy hair balls. You would think that cats would learn that eating your own hair makes you barf, but no,they keep doing the same thing and expecting different results. Sort of like politicians.
Women seem to like cats more than men do. Maybe they have more in common with cats than with dogs. After all, I don’t know of any women who are good at fetching a downed bird.
Dogs are very grateful animals. They will wag their tail to show satisfaction and they will eat just about anything you give them. Cats are no where near as amiable.
Cats wag their tail to show you they are annoyed, and they quite often turn down the same food they just ate four hours ago. Cats are not reliable sniffers. This may be the reason you never see an officer walking around an airport with his drug sniffing cat. Cats get away with more.
If the cat took a dump on your wife’s favorite rug it would be no problem. You would hear comments like “poor thing, you must be feeling bad.”
But if you just happen to spill some barbeque sauce or beer on the same rug all hell would break loose. Just what is it about these worthless cats that deserves this special treatment? Cats are just not very smart. A cat will whine and want to go outside on a cold raw day only to whine and want back inside 10 minutes later. Then in an hour or less the stupid cat will forget how raw and cold it was and want back outside again.
In my opinion cats bring out the empathy in most right-brained people. Cats, being basically worthless, bring out an unconscious empathy for such a stupid creature. A lot of people are also like that. Not all cats are cast from the same mold. Some cats have an identity crisis and even think they are dogs.
There is no greater cat hater than a cat that thinks it’s a dog, sort of like reformed smokers. Now don’t get me wrong. Not all cats are worthless. Some cats are very good mousers and ratters. Outdoor cats are preferred by most ranchers and farmers for that very reason. I guess most of us guys can learn to tolerate
Larry Oscar is a graduate from the University of Tulsa and holds a degree in electrical engineering. He is retired and lives with his wife on a lake in Oklahoma where he brews his own beer, sails, and is a member of numerous clubs and organizations.
Overweight trucks legally transporting produce into the USA from Mexico might be possible, if the state of Texas eases some rules and regulations. The state and some others see a benefit of easing border congestion.
The Texas House of Representatives recently passed legislation to create an “overweight corridor” at the USA -Mexico border, and the Texas Senate is expected to vote on it soon.
The proposed corridor, from the Anzalduas Bridge to the Pharr/Reynosa Bridge, would be an area where Mexican trucks carrying fresh produce would be able to enter the U.S. even if they were overweight. Trucks would then offload their extra weight at a U.S. cold storage facility.
A Mexican truck, under current law, carrying produce that weighs too much, faces a stiff fine if it crosses into the USA.
Currently, trucks are weighed on the Mexican side of the border, and extra product is typically offloaded there if the truck is overweight. This procedure delays truck movement at the border and exposes perishable fruits and vegetables to the elements as it waits for another truck to pick it up.
Trucks that are overweight would be charged a fee, under the proposed law, which is much smaller than the current fine. The big rig would then be allowed to proceed to a cold storage facility in the overweight zone’s boundaries.
Arizona already has a similar law.
Funds from the overweight fees would be used to maintain the roads that will be carrying the heavier loads.
Touting fresh U.S. blueberries and California strawberries as key ingredients, Wendy’s restaurants are again offering berry almond chicken salads.
The fast food restaurant chain plans to buy 2 million pounds of strawberries and 1 million pounds of blueberries from now through September to meet customer demands for the seasonal salad, according to a news release from the Dublin, Ohio-based company.
Wendy’s officials hinted in the release that unseasonable weather in berry growing regions of the U.S. had an effect on the timing of the reintroduction of the berry almond salad.
“Thank goodness berries are ripening on the vine — at last,” Derek Detenber, Wendy’s vice president of brand management, said in the release.
The the salads include 11 types of field greens, in addition to fresh berries, providing a total of three servings of vegetables and one serving of fruit, according to the release. As with its other fresh produce items, Wendy’s employees slice fresh strawberries for the salads at individual restaurants.
Salads have been on the menu at Wendy’s for almost 35 years, with the chain selling more than 100 million salads in the U.S. in 2012, according to the news release. In 2012 Zagat rated Wendy’s salads as No. 1 in the fast food category, beating out Panaera, Chipolte and Subway.
Months after talks over a new site for the Hunts Point Terminal Market broke down, the market’s vendors have sued the City of New York.
Hunts Point is the world’s largest wholesale terminal produce market and thousands of refrigerated big rigs deliver fresh produce to it daily, for distribution throughout New England and much of the East Coast.
On April 22, the Hunts Point Terminal Produce Cooperative Association sued the city and its Business Integrity Commission, according to court documents filed in Bronx Supreme Court.
The association claims in the suit that the Business Integrity Commission, which oversees many activities at Hunts Point, forced produce wholesalers to hire an unqualified consultant to review the association’s public safety department.
A no-bid contract was issued to Long Island-based Global Consulting LLC, which, the suit argues, not only was unqualified for the job but was run by principals with “checkered law enforcement histories.”
The work Global Consulting did for the association was “superficial” and consisted largely of documents provided by the association itself.
The association is suing the City and the Business Integrity Commission for $500,000.
The lawsuit comes at a time when talks between Hunts Point’s produce vendors and the City over construction of a new terminal market have broken down.
In a January meeting, the market board rejected a city offer to amend its existing lease.
Talks are not expected to resume until 2014, when a new mayor enters office.
Rehrig Pacific Company, a market leader in logistics & supply chain management, reusable transport packaging, and environmental waste & recycling solutions, is pleased to announce the launch of their new GMA Rackable Plastic Pallet.
The GMA Rackable Plastic Pallet is the latest in Rehrig Pacific’s supply chain solutions. “We’ve engineered the GMA Pallet as a result of customizing innovative products and solutions that help our customers achieve a lower cost-per-trip, improve sustainability, and ultimately provide efficiency in every aspect of the supply chain,” said Jerry Koefelda, General Manger for Rehrig Pacific Company.
The new GMA Pallet is 100% recyclable and made from a high-density polyethylene resin using high-pressure injection molding that prevents moisture and bacteria absorption. The GMA Pallet meets current FMSA and ePedigree traceability standards, providing the ability to track and trace product movement throughout the supply chain. The precise monitoring system tracks temperature conditions, shock and vibration to lower the risk of liability due to product damage or loss.
About Rehrig Pacific Company
Rehrig Pacific has been helping customers find better ways to transport and store their products for 100 years. Founded in 1913, Rehrig Pacific has become a world-leading provider of logistics & supply chain management, reusable transport packaging, and environmental waste & recycling solutions. In addition to roll-out carts, recycling bins and commercial containers for the waste & recycling collection industry, Rehrig Pacific also manufactures plastic pallets and containers servicing the agriculture, bakery, beverage, dairy and materials handling industries. Headquartered in Los Angeles, Calif., Rehrig Pacific serves customers with manufacturing and service locations throughout the United States and Mexico in addition to sales offices in South America and Europe.
Press Release: Rehrig Pacific Co.
Photo: Courtesy Vidalia® Onion Committee
Shipments of New Jersey-grown peaches should get underway in early July, a little later than last year. Good quality and quantity are being predicted, with loadings lasting through mid-September. More volume is seen this season since some trees planted three to five years ago are coming into production. (more…)
Potential loads for cherries have taken a hit in the Northwest due to an April frost and heavy May rains.
Estimates are now at 17 million boxes, down from 18.6 million boxes.
Loadings will be adversely affected the most on early varieties like chelans and early bings.
Caution is urged when you are at the loading dock and be on the look out for splitting in cherries and other issues.
Shipments are underway, but expected to be lighter than normal. Volume should be decent within a couple of weeks for deliveries to retailers for the Fourth of July holiday. Good volume and much better quality is seen during the month of July.
California cherry shipments are on the downside and this should result in good demand for fruit available in the Northwest, especially with its current light volume.
Oregon Cherries
Hood River cherry shipments in Oregon are expected to start around July 15th and should continue through August. Good volume and quality are forecast.
California Fruit
California’s Watsonville district should have good strawberry volume for shipments leading up to the Fourth of July holiday. The same can be said for stone fruit loadings originating out of the San Joaquin Valley.
New Jersey Blueberries
New Jersey’s blueberry shipments should start this week with good volume heading into the Fourth of July. Good quality should reduce your chances of claims or rejected loads.
Georgia Sweet Corn
Georgia sweet corn loadings, along with a number of mixed vegetables should make for good loading opportunities. There’s also Fort Valley peaches and Vidalia onions. Quality on all these items is now generally good.
South Georgia mixed vegetables – grossing about $3200 to Boston.
San Joaquin Valley stone fruit – grossing about $6900 to Atlanta.