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A new global survey of retailers from the Nielsen Perishables Group titled Why Retailers are Keeping it Fresh concludes that diversification of retail channels where fresh food is purchased and a slowly contracting fresh market share for supermarkets is a big trend in teh USA.
The report includes online and in-person surveys of 87,000 people in 58 countries. Pver half of those surveyed blamed higher prices for cutting their fresh food purchases.
The report also predicts by 2017 USA retail fresh dollar market share for supercenters/hypermarkets will climb to 15 percent, and increase of one percent fromlast year. The share of fresh sales at U.S. warehouse clubs will rise to 12 percent by 2016, up two percent from 2012. However, the share of fresh sales at USA supermarkets will decline from 66 percent last year to 64 percent by 2016.
Consumers in America shop for fresh foods about 1.4 times per week, compared with the average of 2.5 times per week for all global consumers.
In Asia, the report notes fresh foods — bakery, deli, meat, produce and seafood — account for as much as 60 percent of consumer expenses on food, grocery and personal care items. European consumers spend an average of 53 percent on fresh foods as a share of total food and grocery purchases. By contrast, American purchses of fresh foods account for just 30percent of consumer expenditures on food, grocery and personal care items. Fresh produce accounted for 32 percent for fresh category sales in the USA, second only to the meat department’s 39 percent share.
South Florida has been shipping red potatoes and to a lesser extent, gold and white potatoes since the middle of February, with central Florida starting a week or two later.
South Florida potato shipments should be peaking within the next couple of weeks and continue until around the middle of May. North Florida spud loads will become available in late April.
Like most Florida items this year, watermelons got underway early with a mid-March shipping start. Central Florida watermelons will be get started in mid to late April. Both south and central Florida melon loadings should continue into the second or third week of May. Meanwhile, watermelon shipments in northern Florida should get going around mid May and continue through June.
I had a great visit to Georgia May 25-29 visiting with truckers at various truck stops along Interstate 75, as well as on the Atlanta State Farmers Market. Over the next several weeks I’ll be posting some photos and interviews with owner operators and drivers from the Georgia trip.
Additionally I met with a number of shippers of vegetables, watermelons and peaches in central Georgia.
The first part of the week was the coldest I’d ever seen over years in March when in Georiga. There were a couple of heavy frosts and damage to produce will really depend upon a lot of things. For example, I talked with one water melon shipper who received no frost damage, but another shipper located only 20 miles to the north lost his watermelon plants that had only been in the ground a week or so……A bean shipper told me he had some leaf burn on plants…..Peach shippers should know in a week or two if the crop will be affected by the cold……One blueberry shipper said there will be losses for the fruit, which starts in a few weeks. However, it was too early to assess damage…..Overall, I think your Georgia spring and summer loading opportunities won’t be reduced by all that much.
I visited Southeastern Georgia several weeks ago and have followed up that visit with calls to get a better ideal of how Vidalia onion shipments are shaping up. Vidalia has got a lot rain in recent weeks, but decent shipments are still expected.
Loadings in any volume won’t be happening until after mid April. We’ll have to wait and see until the harvest gets going, whether there’s going to be any disease problems from rains, such as downy mildew.
Vidalia typically ships fresh onions until early June, and then continues shipments out of storage into late August or early September. However, sweet onions can be pretty “ify” coming out of storage and tend not to store as well as other onions.
There are nearly 12,600 acres of Vidalia onions planted this year, which is only one percent less than than 2012. — Bill Martin
Greens from central and south Georgia – grossing about $2400 to New York City.
Life is less complicated for Dave Krebs as he runs pretty much the same routes each week for Great Lakes Cheese of Hiram, OH. HaulProduce recently caughtup with after he has delivered a load of cheese to Atanta from Ohio. His weekly route typically takes him from Ohio to Georgia, South Carolina, Virginia, Pennyslvania, Maryland, and as far north as Buffalo, NY. It all involving picking up and delivering cheexe.
Dave, 55, has been trucking since he was 18 years old, where he started out driving a dump truck. He’s been running his current route for the past year. Prior to this he was delivering milk to Costco stores.
“I love having a regular route,” says the resident of Garretsville, OH. “You know what you will be doing for the week and where you will be.” He also works directly with shippers to obtain his own loads.
Dave owns a 2010 359 Peterbilt with an ISX 550 h.p. Cummins diesel. I features an 18 speed transmission, has a 285-inch wheelbase, pulling a 48-foot Utility trailer with a thermoKing unit.
While the owner operator is glad to be trucking for the same businesses each week, he readily admits being a driver isn’t necessarily his first love. Dave enjoys buying and selling things – something like a “horse” trader.
“This is a job. It’s like going on the pawn shop TV series. I’ll sell anything, including this truck,” he notes.
What does he like least about trucking? All the paperwork, the rules and the regulations.
Specifically, Dave mentions the CSA regulations of the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, which rates the safety of motor carriers. The FMCSA bases its safet program on percentages. This mean that 35 percent of carriers are going have safety “alerts,” since only 65 percent of carriers can be deemed safe at any on time.
He calls this rating system, “terrible.”
As for the hours of service rules, Dave say the rules do not bother him, “because what I do, the 34-hour restart does not affect me. I have time for plenty of rest in between my stops.”
While he sees some improvement in the economy, he notes freight rates are still too low and should be higher. When the economy took a nosedive in 2008, Dave sold four flatbed trailers he had been using to haul steel.
Rickie Perteet will never forget back in 2002 when he was outside mowing his yard and his neighbor said to him, “I’m sorry about your job.”
The veteran trucker didn’t have a clue what his neighbor was talking about. Then the fellow said, “You better go inside and see CNN.”
That’s how Rickie, who had been driving 13 years for Consolidated Freightways, found out he was not only unemployed, but the large carrier was no longer in business. The nation’s third largest trucking company had filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. It was Labor Day, September 3, 2002. The Vancouver, WA based carrier had 15,500 employees at the time. It had been in business since 1929.
A resident of Portland, TN, Rickie has now been a company driver for 28 years and hauls produce for Freeman Logisitics.
I caught up with Rickie several weeks ago on the Atlanta State Farmers Market where he had just delivered a load of tomatoes from Nashville, TN. The product was being hauled to FreshPoint Atlanta Inc., a wholesale and foodservice operation.
The company driver has a regular run where he pick ups a load of produce in Nashville on Sunday night for delivery to Atlanta Monday morning. He typically makes two to three round trips per week.
Prior to joing Freeman Logisitics Rickie had made a couple trips to the West Coast hauling chickens westbound and produce back, but says he prefers the trucking he is doing now – and spending more time at home.
He drives a 2003 Peterbilt with a 475 hp Cat diesel and a 13-speed transmission on a 286-inch wheelbase. It pulls at 53-foot Great Dane with a ThermoKing reefer unit.
Rickie, 55, says he learned trucking from his dad. He also has a couple of uncles and an aunt that own a few trucks.
Over the years the aspect of trucking he liked least was being away from home and his kids so much, missing ball games, etc. His children are now 18 and 21 years old and he gets to spend more time with them due to his regular haul, even though the kids no longer live at home.
One fact that saddens him about trucking are the drivers coming into the business. There is a lot of inexperienced drivers on the road who lack professionalism.
“The other day I saw a driver on the highway with a book on the dash and he was reading it while going down the road,” he says.
WAYCROSS, Ga. — Georgia Blueberries are delicious and nutritious – full of vitamins, fiber and disease-fighting antioxidants. Now, there is further evidence that enjoying blueberries is good for your heart. A new study in Circulation: Journal of the American Heart Association suggests eating three or more servings of blueberries each week may help women reduce their risk of having a heart attack.According to the study, conducted by scientists at Harvard School of Public Health and the University of East Anglia (United Kingdom), blueberries contain high levels of dietary flavonoids. A sub-class of these flavonoids, called anthocyanins, may counter plaque buildup, which leads to heart attacks.
Women in the study who ate the most blueberries (and strawberries) had a 32% reduction in heart attacks compared to women who only ate berries once a month or less – even if the women’s diet was full of other fruits and vegetables.The findings were independent of other risk factors including age, weight, blood pressure and family history of heart attacks.“We’ve known about the health benefits of Georgia Blueberries for quite some time,” said Joe Cornelius, chairman of the Georgia Blueberry Commission. “As we begin American Heart Month and focus on ways to prevent heart disease, this study is further evidence that including Georgia Blueberries is an easy way to make a diet more heart-healthy.”Georgia is one of the largest blueberry-producing states in the U.S., with an annual production of nearly 60 million pounds. At their peak of freshness between mid-April through the end of July, Sweet Georgia Blues can be frozen for year-round enjoyment.About the Georgia Blueberry CommissionIn 2009, the Georgia Department of Agriculture formed the Georgia Blueberry Commission as a program to support research, education and promotion on behalf of the state’s growers. Georgia claims the longest season in the U.S. lasting from mid-April through the end of July to enjoy fresh Georgia Blueberries – our very own “Sweet Georgia Blues.” For more information, recipes and background on Georgia Blueberries, log onto www.GeorgiaBlueberries.orgSource: Georgia Blueberry Commission
That Florida freeze in early March hit some the state’s sweet corn, green bean and blueberry crops, and will result in fewer loading opportunities in the weeks ahead, although not as seriously as first feared. Actually, Florida is primed for a pretty good spring hauling season.
On March 4 temperatures plunged into the mid-20s as far south as Belle Glade, FL, which is located between the eastern edge of Lake Okeechobee and West Palm Beach, FL.
Initial concerns were the freeze was a lot worse, but not it now appears that shipments of the state’s sweet corn crop will be down by less than 20 percent, although this is still significant.
Blueberries in Northern Florida sustained mild-to-moderate damage to blueberries while central Florida were virtually unaffected. Blueberry loadings have been occurring now for several weeks.
Perhaps the hardist hit of Florida vegetables were green beans. On the positive side, replantings will make loadings availabe by mid-April, at least in light volume. Still over all shipments will be less due to the initial loss. somewhat diminished.
Michigan Apple Update
Michigan apple shipments were virtually demolished in 2012 following a most untimely freeze. The tree has come out of dormancy four-plus weeks early and and were clobbered by nearly two dozen frosts.
Apple shipments were reduced by 90 percent. As a result, Michigan growers and shippers are pretty edgy this time around. So far, so good with cold weather in recent weeks and it should continue for another week or more before spring weather starts arriving. This it is a matter of praying for no more freezes.
Loading opportunities for more than doubled over the past decade for sweet potatoes, although like its cousin the potato, may be the best paying produce item. However, it’s also less risky to haul since it is less perishable.
North Carolina remains the number one shipper of sweet potatoes. The USDA reports it produced 1.24 billion pounds in 2012. California was second at 617 million pounds. Those two states , along with Louisiana and Mississippi, ship over 90 percent of the USA’s sweet potatoes.
In total American truckers will haul 2.65 billion pounds of sweet potatoes from the 2012 crop. This compares with 1.28 billion 10 years ago.
Total acreage in the U.S. in 2011 — the last year for which that statistic is available — was 130,300 acres, up from 82,300 in 2002.
California Strawberry Shipments
California strawberry shippers have been loading a lot of fruit leading up to Easter (March 31). Strawberry loadings will continue heavy from Southern California right on through Mother’s Day (May 12), when Oxnard starts a seasonal decline.
At some point in May the Watsonville/Salinas district should have really crank up with significan shipments, about the same time various types of vegetables really get going.
As of March 9, California strawberry shippers had moved 9.07 million trays, down from 11.8 million trays for the same period in 2012.
The Oxnard district is expected to hit its peak right after Easter.
(Photo – Love these old buildings scattered throughout rural Georgia)
I’ve already been in the Vidalia sweet onion shipping district in Southeastern Georgia and you can expect loading opportunities to be pretty normal this year – if diease doesn’t start showing up in the crop. It’s really too early to tell. If problems do arise it probably won’t be realized, at least to its full extent, until the harvest begins.
Harvesting should get underway around April 10 or so. There is about 12,600 acres of onions planted, which is pretty normal. The big question surrounds about 12 inches of rain the area got over a two-week period the first half March. We’ll just need to watch this situation closely to see if any quality problems come out of it.
This week I’m spending a few days in Central and South Georgia visiting with vegetable shippers as well as peach shippers. Checking with these guys to see how loading opportunities should be panning out for you this spring and summer.
At the same time I’m going to be scoping out several of the truck stops scattered along Interstate 95, primarily between Macon, GA and the Florida state line. I’m looking forward to talking with drivers about their concerns, how their business is doing and generally just have some good visits.
Perhaps we’ll meet up sometime out on the road this week.
Texas farmers had 13,000 acres of sweet onions planted two years ago. This year there are only 8,000 acres of onions. So when I say there will be average onion shipments out of the Lower Rio Grande Valley this spring – it’s average for the number of onions that were planted.
The Texas 1015 sweet onion, which has suffered from drought and poor markets in recents years, is now be shipped. The first loadings got under way about two weeks ago, but volume shipments are just getting started. Peak shipments should occur aroun April, although loadings will continue until around the Fourth of July.
Blueberry Shipments
Florida blueberry shipments got underway in small volume in late February, around two weeks earlier than usual. Loadings should continue until around Memorial Day in late May. As with many other spring produce items, shipments then originate from more northern areas.
Georgia blueberry shipments typically get underway in late April, followed by North Carolina in the middle of May.
The leading Southeastern states of Florida, Georgia and North Carolina typically average about 27 percent of the USA and Canada’s fresh blueberry volume, amounting to about 136 million pounds.
Georgia loads more blues than any other Southern state. It had 69 million pounds of blueberries in 2012, up 13 million pounds from 2010.
A new global survey of retailers from the Nielsen Perishables Group titled Why Retailers are Keeping it Fresh concludes that diversification of retail channels where fresh food is purchased and a slowly contracting fresh market share for supermarkets is a big trend in teh USA.
The report includes online and in-person surveys of 87,000 people in 58 countries. Pver half of those surveyed blamed higher prices for cutting their fresh food purchases.
The report also predicts by 2017 USA retail fresh dollar market share for supercenters/hypermarkets will climb to 15 percent, and increase of one percent fromlast year. The share of fresh sales at U.S. warehouse clubs will rise to 12 percent by 2016, up two percent from 2012. However, the share of fresh sales at USA supermarkets will decline from 66 percent last year to 64 percent by 2016.
Consumers in America shop for fresh foods about 1.4 times per week, compared with the average of 2.5 times per week for all global consumers.
In Asia, the report notes fresh foods — bakery, deli, meat, produce and seafood — account for as much as 60 percent of consumer expenses on food, grocery and personal care items. European consumers spend an average of 53 percent on fresh foods as a share of total food and grocery purchases. By contrast, American purchses of fresh foods account for just 30percent of consumer expenditures on food, grocery and personal care items. Fresh produce accounted for 32 percent for fresh category sales in the USA, second only to the meat department’s 39 percent share.
South Florida has been shipping red potatoes and to a lesser extent, gold and white potatoes since the middle of February, with central Florida starting a week or two later.
South Florida potato shipments should be peaking within the next couple of weeks and continue until around the middle of May. North Florida spud loads will become available in late April.
Like most Florida items this year, watermelons got underway early with a mid-March shipping start. Central Florida watermelons will be get started in mid to late April. Both south and central Florida melon loadings should continue into the second or third week of May. Meanwhile, watermelon shipments in northern Florida should get going around mid May and continue through June.
I had a great visit to Georgia May 25-29 visiting with truckers at various truck stops along Interstate 75, as well as on the Atlanta State Farmers Market. Over the next several weeks I’ll be posting some photos and interviews with owner operators and drivers from the Georgia trip.
Additionally I met with a number of shippers of vegetables, watermelons and peaches in central Georgia.
The first part of the week was the coldest I’d ever seen over years in March when in Georiga. There were a couple of heavy frosts and damage to produce will really depend upon a lot of things. For example, I talked with one water melon shipper who received no frost damage, but another shipper located only 20 miles to the north lost his watermelon plants that had only been in the ground a week or so……A bean shipper told me he had some leaf burn on plants…..Peach shippers should know in a week or two if the crop will be affected by the cold……One blueberry shipper said there will be losses for the fruit, which starts in a few weeks. However, it was too early to assess damage…..Overall, I think your Georgia spring and summer loading opportunities won’t be reduced by all that much.
I visited Southeastern Georgia several weeks ago and have followed up that visit with calls to get a better ideal of how Vidalia onion shipments are shaping up. Vidalia has got a lot rain in recent weeks, but decent shipments are still expected.
Loadings in any volume won’t be happening until after mid April. We’ll have to wait and see until the harvest gets going, whether there’s going to be any disease problems from rains, such as downy mildew.
Vidalia typically ships fresh onions until early June, and then continues shipments out of storage into late August or early September. However, sweet onions can be pretty “ify” coming out of storage and tend not to store as well as other onions.
There are nearly 12,600 acres of Vidalia onions planted this year, which is only one percent less than than 2012. — Bill Martin
Greens from central and south Georgia – grossing about $2400 to New York City.
Life is less complicated for Dave Krebs as he runs pretty much the same routes each week for Great Lakes Cheese of Hiram, OH. HaulProduce recently caughtup with after he has delivered a load of cheese to Atanta from Ohio. His weekly route typically takes him from Ohio to Georgia, South Carolina, Virginia, Pennyslvania, Maryland, and as far north as Buffalo, NY. It all involving picking up and delivering cheexe.
Dave, 55, has been trucking since he was 18 years old, where he started out driving a dump truck. He’s been running his current route for the past year. Prior to this he was delivering milk to Costco stores.
“I love having a regular route,” says the resident of Garretsville, OH. “You know what you will be doing for the week and where you will be.” He also works directly with shippers to obtain his own loads.
Dave owns a 2010 359 Peterbilt with an ISX 550 h.p. Cummins diesel. I features an 18 speed transmission, has a 285-inch wheelbase, pulling a 48-foot Utility trailer with a thermoKing unit.
While the owner operator is glad to be trucking for the same businesses each week, he readily admits being a driver isn’t necessarily his first love. Dave enjoys buying and selling things – something like a “horse” trader.
“This is a job. It’s like going on the pawn shop TV series. I’ll sell anything, including this truck,” he notes.
What does he like least about trucking? All the paperwork, the rules and the regulations.
Specifically, Dave mentions the CSA regulations of the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, which rates the safety of motor carriers. The FMCSA bases its safet program on percentages. This mean that 35 percent of carriers are going have safety “alerts,” since only 65 percent of carriers can be deemed safe at any on time.
He calls this rating system, “terrible.”
As for the hours of service rules, Dave say the rules do not bother him, “because what I do, the 34-hour restart does not affect me. I have time for plenty of rest in between my stops.”
While he sees some improvement in the economy, he notes freight rates are still too low and should be higher. When the economy took a nosedive in 2008, Dave sold four flatbed trailers he had been using to haul steel.
Rickie Perteet will never forget back in 2002 when he was outside mowing his yard and his neighbor said to him, “I’m sorry about your job.”
The veteran trucker didn’t have a clue what his neighbor was talking about. Then the fellow said, “You better go inside and see CNN.”
That’s how Rickie, who had been driving 13 years for Consolidated Freightways, found out he was not only unemployed, but the large carrier was no longer in business. The nation’s third largest trucking company had filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. It was Labor Day, September 3, 2002. The Vancouver, WA based carrier had 15,500 employees at the time. It had been in business since 1929.
A resident of Portland, TN, Rickie has now been a company driver for 28 years and hauls produce for Freeman Logisitics.
I caught up with Rickie several weeks ago on the Atlanta State Farmers Market where he had just delivered a load of tomatoes from Nashville, TN. The product was being hauled to FreshPoint Atlanta Inc., a wholesale and foodservice operation.
The company driver has a regular run where he pick ups a load of produce in Nashville on Sunday night for delivery to Atlanta Monday morning. He typically makes two to three round trips per week.
Prior to joing Freeman Logisitics Rickie had made a couple trips to the West Coast hauling chickens westbound and produce back, but says he prefers the trucking he is doing now – and spending more time at home.
He drives a 2003 Peterbilt with a 475 hp Cat diesel and a 13-speed transmission on a 286-inch wheelbase. It pulls at 53-foot Great Dane with a ThermoKing reefer unit.
Rickie, 55, says he learned trucking from his dad. He also has a couple of uncles and an aunt that own a few trucks.
Over the years the aspect of trucking he liked least was being away from home and his kids so much, missing ball games, etc. His children are now 18 and 21 years old and he gets to spend more time with them due to his regular haul, even though the kids no longer live at home.
One fact that saddens him about trucking are the drivers coming into the business. There is a lot of inexperienced drivers on the road who lack professionalism.
“The other day I saw a driver on the highway with a book on the dash and he was reading it while going down the road,” he says.
|
WAYCROSS, Ga. — Georgia Blueberries are delicious and nutritious – full of vitamins, fiber and disease-fighting antioxidants. Now, there is further evidence that enjoying blueberries is good for your heart. A new study in Circulation: Journal of the American Heart Association suggests eating three or more servings of blueberries each week may help women reduce their risk of having a heart attack.According to the study, conducted by scientists at Harvard School of Public Health and the University of East Anglia (United Kingdom), blueberries contain high levels of dietary flavonoids. A sub-class of these flavonoids, called anthocyanins, may counter plaque buildup, which leads to heart attacks. Women in the study who ate the most blueberries (and strawberries) had a 32% reduction in heart attacks compared to women who only ate berries once a month or less – even if the women’s diet was full of other fruits and vegetables.The findings were independent of other risk factors including age, weight, blood pressure and family history of heart attacks.“We’ve known about the health benefits of Georgia Blueberries for quite some time,” said Joe Cornelius, chairman of the Georgia Blueberry Commission. “As we begin American Heart Month and focus on ways to prevent heart disease, this study is further evidence that including Georgia Blueberries is an easy way to make a diet more heart-healthy.”Georgia is one of the largest blueberry-producing states in the U.S., with an annual production of nearly 60 million pounds. At their peak of freshness between mid-April through the end of July, Sweet Georgia Blues can be frozen for year-round enjoyment.About the Georgia Blueberry CommissionIn 2009, the Georgia Department of Agriculture formed the Georgia Blueberry Commission as a program to support research, education and promotion on behalf of the state’s growers. Georgia claims the longest season in the U.S. lasting from mid-April through the end of July to enjoy fresh Georgia Blueberries – our very own “Sweet Georgia Blues.” For more information, recipes and background on Georgia Blueberries, log onto www.GeorgiaBlueberries.orgSource: Georgia Blueberry Commission |
That Florida freeze in early March hit some the state’s sweet corn, green bean and blueberry crops, and will result in fewer loading opportunities in the weeks ahead, although not as seriously as first feared. Actually, Florida is primed for a pretty good spring hauling season.
On March 4 temperatures plunged into the mid-20s as far south as Belle Glade, FL, which is located between the eastern edge of Lake Okeechobee and West Palm Beach, FL.
Initial concerns were the freeze was a lot worse, but not it now appears that shipments of the state’s sweet corn crop will be down by less than 20 percent, although this is still significant.
Blueberries in Northern Florida sustained mild-to-moderate damage to blueberries while central Florida were virtually unaffected. Blueberry loadings have been occurring now for several weeks.
Perhaps the hardist hit of Florida vegetables were green beans. On the positive side, replantings will make loadings availabe by mid-April, at least in light volume. Still over all shipments will be less due to the initial loss. somewhat diminished.
Michigan Apple Update
Michigan apple shipments were virtually demolished in 2012 following a most untimely freeze. The tree has come out of dormancy four-plus weeks early and and were clobbered by nearly two dozen frosts.
Apple shipments were reduced by 90 percent. As a result, Michigan growers and shippers are pretty edgy this time around. So far, so good with cold weather in recent weeks and it should continue for another week or more before spring weather starts arriving. This it is a matter of praying for no more freezes.
Loading opportunities for more than doubled over the past decade for sweet potatoes, although like its cousin the potato, may be the best paying produce item. However, it’s also less risky to haul since it is less perishable.
North Carolina remains the number one shipper of sweet potatoes. The USDA reports it produced 1.24 billion pounds in 2012. California was second at 617 million pounds. Those two states , along with Louisiana and Mississippi, ship over 90 percent of the USA’s sweet potatoes.
In total American truckers will haul 2.65 billion pounds of sweet potatoes from the 2012 crop. This compares with 1.28 billion 10 years ago.
Total acreage in the U.S. in 2011 — the last year for which that statistic is available — was 130,300 acres, up from 82,300 in 2002.
California Strawberry Shipments
California strawberry shippers have been loading a lot of fruit leading up to Easter (March 31). Strawberry loadings will continue heavy from Southern California right on through Mother’s Day (May 12), when Oxnard starts a seasonal decline.
At some point in May the Watsonville/Salinas district should have really crank up with significan shipments, about the same time various types of vegetables really get going.
As of March 9, California strawberry shippers had moved 9.07 million trays, down from 11.8 million trays for the same period in 2012.
The Oxnard district is expected to hit its peak right after Easter.
(Photo – Love these old buildings scattered throughout rural Georgia)
I’ve already been in the Vidalia sweet onion shipping district in Southeastern Georgia and you can expect loading opportunities to be pretty normal this year – if diease doesn’t start showing up in the crop. It’s really too early to tell. If problems do arise it probably won’t be realized, at least to its full extent, until the harvest begins.
Harvesting should get underway around April 10 or so. There is about 12,600 acres of onions planted, which is pretty normal. The big question surrounds about 12 inches of rain the area got over a two-week period the first half March. We’ll just need to watch this situation closely to see if any quality problems come out of it.
This week I’m spending a few days in Central and South Georgia visiting with vegetable shippers as well as peach shippers. Checking with these guys to see how loading opportunities should be panning out for you this spring and summer.
At the same time I’m going to be scoping out several of the truck stops scattered along Interstate 95, primarily between Macon, GA and the Florida state line. I’m looking forward to talking with drivers about their concerns, how their business is doing and generally just have some good visits.
Perhaps we’ll meet up sometime out on the road this week.
Texas farmers had 13,000 acres of sweet onions planted two years ago. This year there are only 8,000 acres of onions. So when I say there will be average onion shipments out of the Lower Rio Grande Valley this spring – it’s average for the number of onions that were planted.
The Texas 1015 sweet onion, which has suffered from drought and poor markets in recents years, is now be shipped. The first loadings got under way about two weeks ago, but volume shipments are just getting started. Peak shipments should occur aroun April, although loadings will continue until around the Fourth of July.
Blueberry Shipments
Florida blueberry shipments got underway in small volume in late February, around two weeks earlier than usual. Loadings should continue until around Memorial Day in late May. As with many other spring produce items, shipments then originate from more northern areas.
Georgia blueberry shipments typically get underway in late April, followed by North Carolina in the middle of May.
The leading Southeastern states of Florida, Georgia and North Carolina typically average about 27 percent of the USA and Canada’s fresh blueberry volume, amounting to about 136 million pounds.
Georgia loads more blues than any other Southern state. It had 69 million pounds of blueberries in 2012, up 13 million pounds from 2010.