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Southern California strawberry volume for the first three weeks in January was around 1.2 million trays, which is pretty normal.   However, this is is only a small percentage of what the state will ship from spring through fall.

The state’s strawberry production has been building each year,  and in 2012  record shipments exceeded 190 million trays.

A primary growth in strawberry volume and shipments is now occurring from Ventura and Santa Mara.  The first significant volume this year is expect to take place in the days leading up to Easter (March 31st), with April expected to have big volume.

Potatoes

With a lot of spuds to be shipped this year, a survey shows  bagged red potatoes in the USA  was up 14 percent in the fourth quarter of 2012 compared to the same period in 2011.

In the Red River Valley of North Dakota and Minnesota where 94 percent of the potatoes grown for the fresh market are reds, the valley is the largest shipper of red potatoes in the country.

At the same time, bagged russet shipments declined in the fourth quarter seven percent.  Russet loadings still far exceed red potato shipments, however.

Greenhouse Veggies

LEAMINGTON, Ontario — Greenhouse shippers in teh Leamington, Ontario area  continue to increase their acreage, particularaly along the northern shore of Lake Erie.

Peppers acerage  is up at several greenhouses for 2013, with 33 percent  of the province’s greenhouse acres planted in peppers, up from 29 percent a year ago.  There also should be more  mini and specialty peppers from the area, but green, red, yellow and orange bell peppers will continue to provide the most volume.  Cumcumbers amount to around 31 percent of greenhouse acres in Ontario in 2013, compared to 29 percent last year.

Southern California produce – grossing about $2800 to Dallas.

Red River Valley potatoes – about $1750 to Chicago.

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Small fleet owner Dean Blalock is in his 20th year of trucking and it is more than luck he continues to make a living in a very competitive profession.

A resident of Jasper, GA, he cites several reasons for his success.

*Don’t haul cheap freight.

*You’ve got to keep working and not sit at home.

*He has his own maintenance shop run by his son, with his daughter handling the books.  The shop handles everything from tire changes to most other maintenance.

*You have to be dependable in providing service,  including being on time for pick ups and deliveries.

While Dean has done his share of long haul, coast-to-coast trucking he now focuses on having his two trucks run primarily between Georgia and Florida.

On Sunday he will pick up his pre-loaded trailer  53-foot , 2007 Great Dane trailer at a plant in Cornellias, GA filled with frozen chicken.  He’ll deliver the load in Plant City, FL.  The return trip to Georgia is with produce.

On this particular day in January he had picked up a load of strawberries in Plant City at 10 p.m. and delivered the fruit to Collins Brothers Produce on the Atlanta State Farmers Market the next morning at 7 a.m.  He makes three round trips a week, averaging about 3,000 to 3,500 miles per week.

Following the third round trip he typically drops his trailer at the Georgia chicken facility on Friday and picks it up fully loaded on Sunday to start the whole process over again.

“I’d rather deal with the same people all of the time,” Dean relates.  “I stick with those companies that pay you.  When I arrived at Collins Brothers this morning I was paid soon as I unloaded.”

The Georgian used to haul coast-to-coast, which he described as “okay,” but says the rates were just not what they should be.  He makes more on per mile basis with his Georgia-Florida runs.

“Some guys run the East Coast to California for $1800.  I nearly make that much doing what I’m doing,” Dean says.

It was about three months earlier that he had make a round trip to the West Coast, but only because the westbound rate was $4500 with the return haul being $5600.

Dean drives at 1996 Peterbilt, powered by a 3406E Cat diesel linked to a 10 speed transmission on a 275-inch wheelbase.  The truck has a 63-inch sleeper.  He bought the truck in 2003 with 250,000 miles on it.  Today, the truck has over 1.1 million miles.  His other truck is a 2001 Pete.

Dean is a third generation trucker and also has two brothers in the profession.

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The Bully Dog Race Team is excited to announce that they have recently acquired a new race trailer that will be used to transport the Bully Dog race truck and Bully Dog sponsored trucks to races this season. This 48-foot beast is a fully enclosed race trailer that will have the capacity to haul the race trucks of superstar Bully Dog racer Jarid “The Iron Man” Vollmer and Bully Dog sponsored Nick Adamson, both of whom compete in the NHRDA series, and will also serve as a fully outfitted mobile shop on site at the races.

The trailer is now in the Bully Dog shop getting prepped, wrapped and ready for the big season. Keep your eye out for further photos and updates from the Bully Dog Race Team. To find out more about our upcoming appearances and events, check out our Facebook page

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An usually warm, mild Florida winter has shipments of most produce items ahead of schedule.  If the trend continues this will lead right into spring shipments of many items, particularly vegetables.

For example, swee corn shipments have been good this winter, with plantings for spring loadings starting in light volume by early to mid-March.  Corn movement is currently orignating out of the Homestead area, as a primer for strong shipments with higher volume arrives  at the end of March fromBelle Glade, at least a week earlier than normal.  Belle Glade sweet corn loading should continue through most of May.

Strawberries from the Plant City area continue in strong volume.

Florida Ports

The most volume with fruits arriving at South Florida ports, are easily with Chilean table grapes, followed by apples and berries.  Still, over all fruit arrivals at Florida prots are lower due in part to a freeze earlier in the season in Chile.

There also are other times from hauling from Florida ports ranging from citrus products, to avocados, cherries, stone fruits, pomegranates and kiwifruit.  Additionally, there are arrivals of  blueberries from Chile, pineapples from Costa Rico, melons — cantaloupes and honeydews — from Honduras and Guatemala, tomatoes from Guatemala, cucumbers from Honduras and asparagus and mangos from Peru.

South Florida produce – grossing about $2000 to Baltimore.

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FoodLink, the network for fresh food retailers, wholesalers, growers and shippers, reported a third straight year of record growth in 2012. Growth was driven by new retail customers, expanded business with existing customers, and a surge of new suppliers and service partners joining its online commerce network.

“This was a good year for FoodLink and an even better one for our customers,” Eric Peters, president and chief executive officer of Los Gatos, CA-based FoodLink, said in a press release. “Many of the early industry projects and efforts to increase efficiency and traceability in fresh food are being embraced by the mainstream, and there is no longer much doubt about the tangible benefits that come from improvements in growing, shipping and merchandising safe, fresh food while eliminating waste from the supply chain. FoodLink has long been a leader in this area, and we look forward to continuing that trend.”

In 2012, FoodLink moved into the Produce Traceability Initiative sphere by acquiring pioneering SaaS solution provider TrueTrac LLC. TrueTrac’s suite of products enables growers and shippers to electronically track the origins and movement of fresh food through the supply chain, and to comply with new food-safety regulations while supporting consumer demand for more information about the source and freshness of their food.

“We looked at other solutions, but FoodLink stood out as the most flexible, cost-effective way for us to connect with our growers in Central [America] and South America, and to achieve our goals in terms of labeling and traceability,” Mike Bowe, vice president of Dave’s Specialty Imports, one of FoodLink’s new PTI customers, added in the press release.

FoodLink added United Supermarkets to the network in 2012 and enabled customers to directly transact with high-volume buyers such as Costco as well as regional brands such as Stater Bros. Inc.

FoodLink also brought new inventory management capabilities to longtime customer C&S Wholesalers and expanded business with fresh food buyers such as Ahold USA, Topco Associates, Associated Wholesale Grocers, Roundy’s Supermarkets and Unified Grocers.

“FoodLink will provide us with the real-time data that we need to improve our buying,” Tommy Wilkins, director of produce procurement for United Supermarkets, added in the press release. “Their network connects us with our suppliers and carriers to help us make the best buying decisions and improve our supply chain efficiency. Given the increased importance of produce in our stores, FoodLink will help us continue to make this category a differentiator.”

Suppliers had many new options on FoodLink in 2012. High-volume suppliers signed up for FoodLink DirectConnect, a service that directly integrates back-end financial and operational systems with the FoodLink network. New DirectConnect customers include Calavo Growers Inc., Grower’s Express LLC, Mastronardi Produce Ltd. and Sunsprout of Lancaster.

In addition, new products such as FoodLink Deal Manager enabled suppliers to build an online product catalog and to run promotions that aligned with retailer merchandising strategies.

New products and customers in 2012 contributed to a third straight year of increased purchase order volume and growth in the number of trading partner connections between buyers and sellers over the FoodLink network. Some of those gains include the following:

• More than 50 new suppliers signed up for annual subscriptions.
• Overall network traffic increased with more than 320 new supplier-buyer relationships.
• Orders for fresh produce increased by 26 percent over the previous year.
• More than 100,000 items were promoted across the new Deal Manager platform

Last year also marked the beginning of a new kind of network for FoodLink, as software and services partners began to leverage the company’s “open” network architecture to build solutions that can enhance the value of existing trading partner connections.

Offline, FoodLink increased participation in events such as FreshBuys LIVE (www.foodlink.net/events/freshbuys-live), a first-of-its kind series of one-day regional events connecting retail buyers and perishable goods suppliers doing business over FoodLink.

“Our relationship with FoodLink and our ability to use the open network to provide a direct channel to important fresh food buyers is truly a best practice,” Rob O’Rourke, co-owner of RJO Produce, added in the press release. “This is just the beginning of how we will use platforms like FoodLink to continue to evolve and enhance the fresh produce supply chain.”

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Mexican produce crossings at both Nogales, AZ  and in South Texas have been reduced by cold, wet weather.  Both Arizona and Texas are major border crossing points with warehouse distribution centers.  Produce truckers load at these faciliteis for delivery Mexican fresh produce across the USA and Canada.

There have been tight supplies on yellow squash, green beans, sweet corn and some other commodities from northern Mexico, due to the lingering effects of a mid-January freeze in southern Sonora and northern Sinaloa, Mexico.

The majority freeze damage occurred January 11-16.

It will probably be April 1st before volume and loadings return to normal.  Losses have been extensive and drivers should make an extra effort to observe what is being loaded and look for damage to items ranging from squash to green beans, among others.

Nearly everything in Sonora and from Los Mochis north in Sinaloa was adversely affected by the freeze.

Mexican tomatoes, which are grown mostly in greenhouses  farther to the south, were  in fine shape and not affected nearly as much by the cold.  About 200 truckloads of tomatoes  are crossing the borders weekly at both Nogales and McAllen, TX, with volume on the increase.

Mexican tomatoes and other items crossing at McAllen – grossing about $4300 to New York City.

Mexican tomatoes and veggies crossing at Nogales – grossing about $3400 to Chicago.

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Southern California is projected to ship about 7.2 million trays of  kiwifruit this season, 2 million fewer than last season.

Because  Italy’s crop are even lighter than California’s -about 22% lighter, California shipments should remain strong for produce haulers.  California still has about 45% of its crop remaining in storage.  Loadings should continue on a steady basis until Chilean product begins arriving in April.

You know when Californa and Arizona lettuce prices go through the roof due to freezes and rains in the desert, shipments are much lighter due to lack of volume.  It difficult to forecast when loading opportunities will improve.  While produce haulers may find more lettuce for hauling during February, shipments will once again decline in March until crops make a seasonal shift to Huron in the San Joaquin Valley and then to Salinas in only a few weeks.

Not only has it been quite a roller coaster ride in the Imperial Valley and Yuma, but in the Coachella Valley with vegetablaes as well.  The weather also has resulted in shipping gaps in Southern California with everything from berries to citrus.

Now, during the weekend of February 9 and 10th the San Joaquin Valley, particularly the area just north of Bakersfield, had freezing temperatures.  However, apprently the ctrus crops escaped damage.  About 60 of the crop remains to be harvested.

Desert vegetable shipments grossing about $6200 to New York City.

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A study by The NPD Group claims fresh fruit is eaten as a snack more often than any sweet or salty alternative beyond the produce aisle with USA consumers.

The report,   “Snacking in America”  is from the group’s Rosemont, Ill.-based food and beverage division. It states fresh fruit is eaten 55 times annually per capita as a snack. Chocolate is second at 45; potato chips third at 30; nuts, 27; and cookies, 22. Crackers, yogurt, ice cream and others accounted for 17 each.

The two-year study ended in March.

The NPD Group study found snacks account for 20 percent of all eating occasions.

“Those of us already following the healthiest diets are snacking twice as often as those of us with the least healthy diet,” the report says. “Increased consumption of fruits, yogurts and other better-for-you products is contributing to this health dynamic.”

California is expected to soon announce a new record for table grape shipments.  Not only was it a huge crop, but the fruit was high in sugar and had great taste.  California table grapes growers are were promoting their fruit as the “Original Super Snack” this season.

The commission is touting five snack recipes on its website aimed at snackers. One is grapes in a canoe — peanut butter-filled celery sticks topped with grapes.  The study scores consumers’ snack choices on multiple criteria, among them health and weight concerns; satisfying hunger; convenience; satisfying a craving; and habit.

It distinguishes snacking from grazing. Snacking is more of a social occasion than grazing, it says, and is less likely to include a beverage. Only one in four snacks is now consumed with a beverage. High-calorie, sugary fruit drinks and carbonated soft drinks have seen the largest declines in consumption, according to the report.

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