Archive For The “Trucking Reports” Category
A packing date is set for Vidalia sweet onions. Otherwise, primary onion loadings a taking place from two western U.S. areas. Finally, here’s the outlook for imported mangoes.
An April 12th pack date for Vidalia onions has been set by the Georgia Department of Agriculture, which is about two weeks earlier than the pack dates during the past three seasons.
GDA rules mandate that no Vidalia onions can be packed or sold before the April 12 pack date. The pack date is established prior to each season to ensure the highest quality onions are delivered to retail stores for consumers across the country. The 2017 Vidalia onion crop is ahead of schedule because of the mild temperatures this winter thus resulting in the earlier pack date. Any sweet onions shipped from the Vidalia growing district prior to April 12th cannot be sold and shipped as Vidalia onions.
This is a very quiet time of year for Georgia produce shipments, with very light volume on a few items such as carrots and greens. Peach shipments are a couple of months away.
Storage Onion Shipments
The largest amount of onions coming out of domestic storages, averaging about 800 truck loads per week, is from western Idaho and nearby Malheur Co. in eastern Oregon. Similar onion volume also is be loaded from the Columbia Basin in Washington state and the adjacent Umatilla Basin of Oregon.
Idaho/Oregon onions – grossing about $4200 to Atlanta.
Southern Washington/ Northern Oregon onions – grossing about $4800 to New York City.
Mango Imports
Mango imports for markets in the U.S. are expected to be similar in volume to last year. Peruvian imported mangoes are rapidly declining as the season comes to a close, while it will be April before there is big volume crossing the border from Mexico.
U.S. consumption of mangos continues to increase as the tropical fruit becomes more mainstream than ever. Since 2005, mango volume has increased over 75 percent, from 62 million boxes in 2005 to 109 million boxes in 2016. U.S. per capita consumption has grown 58 percent since 2005 to almost three pounds per person in 2016.
While rain drenched California citrus isn’t having significant quality problems, that could change during the weeks ahead. Meanwhile, here’s a look at avocado shipments from Mexico and California.
The bottom line is citrus growers don’t know what long-term effect the recent rains will have on the crop as navels and cara cara navels hit peak loadings. Excessive rain and moisture can adversely affect low-hanging fruit on trees, so packinghouses are running a little slower to monitor spoilage.
Gold nugget variety mandarins and Ojai pixie tangerines — late season specialty varieties, also recently got underway by Sunkist Growers. Additionally, California Star Ruby grapefruit shipments are about to start.
While quality issues down the road are a question mark, more certainty is that the 2017 harvest will end earlier this season. Instead of lasting until the Fourth of July, shipments will end in early June.
Total tonnage harvested in 2017 is expected to be 15 to 19 percent less than a year ago.
Southern California citrus, avocados – grossing about $4500 to Atlanta.
Avocado Shipments
Shipments of Mexican avocados through south Texas in February this year totaled about 135.1 million pounds (3,3375 truck loads), compared with 166.25 million pounds (4,150) shipped in February last year.
U.S. volume of hass avocados from all sources (California and Mexico) in March will total about 187 million pounds (4,675 truck loads), down from about 199.3 million pounds (4,975 truck loads) in March 2016.
Southern California avocados shipments have been delayed by rains this season, although the state’s volume is light compared with Mexico. Only about 4 percent of total shipments in late came from California.
Mexico’s crop estimate has been reduced to 1.6 billion pounds (55,000 truck loads) and final estimates may be even less.
Mexico is shipping about 30 million pounds per week (750 truck loads) compared with normal volumes in the 40 million pounds (1,000 truck loads) per week range as supplies are quickly running out.
Still, Mexico is expected during the next six to eight weeks to ship between 27 million (675 truck loads) to 32 million pounds per week,
California avocado shipments should end its season with about 195 million (4,875 truck loads) compared to nearly 400 million pounds in 2016. Larger avocado crops are often followed by smaller crops the next year.
California loadings could increase by mid-March and into April to 8 to 10 million pounds per week. This would compare to shipments as high as 15 million pounds per week a year ago.
Imported Mexican avocados, tropical fruits and vegetables through South Texas – grossing about $2700 to Chicago.
California citrus shipments are getting back on track after days of rains. Meanwhile, weather is expected to have a significant impact of Salinas vegetable shipments, but not affect California almonds, nearly as much.
The effects of the rain in citrus groves about a week ago, which hinders harvest and shipments when the ground is too muddy, could have been worse. It helps we are talking citrus and not something more perishable like strawberries (See March 1st report). Of note as we’ve previously reported, orange shippers had a bigger-than-normal pre-Christmas loadings, shipping about 30 percent of crop before the holiday, compared to a normal 20-25 percent. This is expected to result in season ending shipments occurring earlier than usual.
While harvest and shipments have been significantly slowed down, with it being too muddy for heavy equipment, the citrus industry is estatic over the great improvements in the water supply. Even better, the excess rain has not created any quality-related issues – thus far.
Southern California oranges and specialty citrus – grossing about $3600 to Chicago.
Vegetable Shipments
Vegetable growers love the big rains that have recently occurred, but the trade off is plantings have been delayed in the Salinas Valley. This will be some shipping gaps, which will be felt even more because vegetable shipments from the California and Arizona deserts are going to end early than usual.
Not only are Salinas Valley spring vegetable shipments to be later this year, but there’s an excellent chance yields will be off due to wet-weather planting and generally adverse conditions. This of course, will translate into fewer vegetable shipments.
Imperial Valley and Yuma vegetables – grossing about $4600 to Atlanta.
Almond Shipments
Because of recent rains and storms in the San Joaquin Valley, some almond trees were blown down by strong winds recently. However, tree losses aren’t as bad as initially feared and optimism continues for good shipments when the season starts the latter part of August.
Mexican Grape Shipments
It’s a bit early, but initial estimates for the Mexican grape shipments are expected to be pretty much on time, which should mean fruit starting to cross the border at Nogales in late April.
Everyone is aware of the five-year drought in California. While the drought may not be officially over, those rains are reducing produce shipments on some items and will have an effect of loadings heading into spring.
California strawberry shipments have been hit hardest by the rains, while citrus loadings have also been affected, but not as much.
The rains post phoned the strawberry harvest along the Central and Southern Coast areas of Santa Maria and Oxnard, due to waterlogged fields A significant amount of strawberries were damaged and had to be dumped or sent to the processors.
The good news is more spring like weather is expected for the next 10 days or so.
There is a big bloom in California strawberries in Santa Maria and Oxnard, which should result in good shipments within a few weeks. At Watsonville, the heaviest production area for strawberries, the new season likely will be delayed to the end of March or early April, a couple of weeks later than last year.
Both Florida and Mexico are at the end of their strawberry season, but trying to extend shipments later than normal to help cover the losses in California volume. Caution is urged loading strawberries from any of these three areas as high market prices resulting from low volume sometimes tempt shippers to load product they normally would not otherwise send to the fresh market. Just make sure the receiver of this fruit knows what they are getting.
Ventura County strawberries and vegetables – grossing about $3300 to Dallas.
Florida Produce Shipments
The Plant City area of Florida is shipping over 600 truck loads of strawberries a week, but as mentioned in the previous paragraph, watch for late season quality issues….Likewise, the light Mexcian strawberry volume is mostly crossing the border in South Texas and averaging about 125 truck loads as its season in winding down.
Back in Florida, perhaps the heaviest shipments are occurring with tomatoes with over 600 truckloads being shipped weekly. Other leading items such as cabbage and grapefruit have much smaller volume. Florida vegetable shipments in general will be increasing as we get further into March.
Florida tomatoes, and vegetables – grossing about $2600 to New York City.
If you thought produce hauling was bad in January, you’ve probably not found February to be any better. But it’s that time of the year. Hang in there, March is coming and volume on many items will be picking up as we head into spring. In the meantime, here’s a national outlook for some of the better loading opportunities.
Apple Shipments
Washington state’s Yakima and Wenatchee valleys are providing the lion’s share of apple shipments, and the single biggest volume for any fruit or vegetable right now, moving around 3100 truck load equivalents per week. Michigan and New York state are loading some apples, but nothing close to Washington.
Washington apples and pears – grossing about $6200 to New York City.
Potato Shipments
As has been the case for months, one of the heaviest volume produce item is with Idaho potato shipments. Originating primarily from the Burley and Twin Falls areas, the state is averaging around 1900 truck load equivalents per week. However, keep in mind with a big crop and low f.o.b. prices, shippers are looking for the cheapest transportation available, and often that is with the railroad….Colorado’s San Luis Valley is shipping about 600 truck loads of potatoes, while Central Wisconsin is moving about half that volume.
Idaho potato shipments – grossing about $5100 to New York City.
Imported Produce
Mexican imported produce continues crossing the border near McAllen, Tx. Avocados last week amounted to around 875 truck loads and volume is expected to increase. Mexican tomatoes are around 500 truck loads per week. There’s many other items in much smaller volume ranging from limes to watermelon crossing the South Texas border.
Imported cantaloupes are in good volume primarily from Guatemala and Honduras arriving mostly at Southern Florida ports and ports in Southern California…..Peruvian grape arrivals are pretty much finished. Problems with Chilean grape quality are supposed to be improving now, but still keep an eye on what’s being loaded. But Chile’s the only game in town now with grapes, with most arriving at Ports in the Philadelphia area.
Here’s a look at loading opportunities for two favorite St. Patrick’s Day vegetables. We also take a look at Yuma vegetable shipments, and California asparagus.
Cabbage and potato volume should be very good for shipments leading up to St. Patrick’s Day, which is March 17th.
South Florida cabbage shipments have started and will be in good volume heading into March. Shipments will continue through May.
Potato Shipments
There will be plenty of spuds available for the holiday with new crops of red potatoes and white potatoes from South Florida as well as late season storage red potatoes from the Red River Valley of North Dakota and Minnesota. Idaho continues to heavily ship russet potatoes, but reds and whites are an Irish favorite.
Yuma Vegetable Shipments
Winter Yuma vegetables shipments are always a roll of the dice and this season seems no different, except maybe the issues are different. Many of the same shippers out of Salinas also farm in Yuma, AZ. In Salinas they are used to dealing with mildew. The problem is rare in the desert, but has been a major problem this season, especially with head lettuce and romaine. Mildew is caused by rain, warm temperatures and humidity. The result has been a lot of fields have been disced.
The result will be lighter volume for the last month or so with Yuma vegetable shipments. There’s also growing concerns with Yuma tending to finish up a few weeks early, that Salinas may get off to a slow start this season and there could be major shipping gaps from late March, through April and perhaps into May.
Yuma vegetable shipments – grossing about $3800 to Chicago.
Asparagus Shipments
California asparagus shipments should get underway in early to mid-March, from the Stockton-Delta area. It is estimated the state has 9,000 to 10,000 acres of “grass” and volume is expected to be similar to last season. There also is good news in that water supplies have improved a lot over a year ago with reservoirs continuing to rise.
Asparagus shipments typically get a boost from the Easter observance (April 16th), which is one of the most popular times of year for the vegetable.
Last week in our report on the growing volume from Mexico with many vegetables, we noted it often comes at the expense of California. An excellent example of this is labor costs.
California’s minimum wage is headed to $15 per hour by 2023. A new law also requires agricultural workers to be paid overtime after eight hours, down from 10 hours previously. Asparagus is cut by hand and is one of the most labor intensive crops in the produce industry.
Decent volume of Mexican vegetables continue to cross the border into the U.S. at Nogales, AZ.
Good quality and ample volume is available with vegetables ranging from squash, to bell peppers and cucumbers. Heaviest volume is with bell peppers and cucumbers (each averaging about 500 truck loads per week), and squash, around 400 truck loads weekly. There are less amounts of items such as watermelon, eggplant, red, yellow and orange bell peppers and mini peppers out and beans, among others.
There has been pretty good volume a lot of perfect weather, which may result in many vegetables peaking earlier than usual and possibly resulting in an early end to shipments in early March.
Still, there is a wide range of items, including soft squash, such as zucchini, yellow and gray, and hard squash such as acorn, butternut and spaghetti as well as green beans, fresh pickles, green and colored bell peppers and eggplant, American and English cucumbers, and roma tomatoes.
There will be increasing volume of some vegetables crossing the border into Nogales in March and April with conventional and organic bell peppers, mini sweet peppers and long English cucumbers.
Of note is a number of Nogales distributors, as well as an increasing number of Mexican growers have been contracting directly with U.S. wholesalers and retailers. This is a significant change in the way Mexican vegetables are distributed from just a few years ago. Many of those Mexican growers are working closely with U.S. growers from California.
Mexican table grapes, which start increasing in volume as most Mexican vegetable items are headed to a seasonal end, will start sometime the last half of April, if not early May. Mexican grapes provided the heaviest volume for the U.S. during the spring until California’s San Joaquin Valley gets going in June.
Mexican vegetable shipments through Nogales – grossing about $4600 to New York City.
Citrus shipments from the Florida industry continues to decline, with the loading of oranges dropping another million boxes in the past month.
The USDA reports February 9th that orange growers will ship 70 million 90-pound boxes to market. The season, which peaks during the winter months, had shown some promise in November. At that time industry analysts predicted 72 million boxes.
However, in January, the forecast dipped to 71 million. That is a 14 percent decline from last season’s final Florida orange shipping report.
Valencia production estimates from January to February held even at 35 million boxes, but the prediction for early, mid-season and navel oranges dropped from 36 million to 35 million boxes.
“Today’s forecast reflects a true utilization of early, mid-season, and navel varieties. We hope for higher numbers of valencia production as we continue through the second half of the season,” executive director of the Florida Department of Citrus Shannon Shepp said in a news release.
Oranges make up about 65 percent of Florida citrus trees and fresh loadings account for about 4percent of orange shipments.
Overall production estimates of all oranges, which also includes California and Texas, dropped 1 percent, to 5.35 million tons, from January’s estimate. That is a 10 percent slump from overall shipments a year ago.
Citrus greening, weather and other issues have created challenges for Florida’s citrus production, which accounts for almost half of the total U.S. harvest.
In its February report, the USDA kept California’s orange crop estimates the same at 53 million 80-pound boxes to be shipped, with 44 million boxes of navel, early and mid-season oranges and 9 million boxes of valencias for shipping.
Florida grapefruit estimates remained steady at 9 million 85-pound boxes. California grapefruit production estimates were also the same from January, with 4.1 million 80-pound boxes.
Florida produce shipments, ranging from vegetables to melons, berries and citrus – grossing about $2500 to New York City.
Loading opportunities for produce haulers for imported Mexican fresh fruits and vegetables have been rising for the past two decades or more, and this trend is expected to continue.
The reasons range from favoritable climates (with the emphasis on the plural) south of the border, cheaper labor and growing costs, not to mention the outrageous political and regulatory climate in crazy California that is makes it ever more difficult to do business there.
For example, A.M. Farms, Stockton, CA., had grown asparagus there since the 1930s, but no longer farms the product. Dole Fresh Vegetables of Monterey, CA no longer markets asparagus from California and is concentrating its efforts with Mexican grown asparagus.
It used to be Mexican imports by U.S. businesses got underway around Thanksgiving and continued through March or maybe mid-April. Now some produce items are still crossing the border in late spring and early summer. For example, watermelon shipments are now available through most of June. Table grape, mangos and some leafy items go well into summer.
Peak loading opportunities of Mexican produce imports for the winter season, used to be January or February, but now it is closer to being March and April.
Some produce growers are moving farther south into Mexico building greenhouse operations, allowing a longer growing and shipping season. This helps them bridge the supply gap for the U.S. crops in May and June that are hitting big volume.
Just as some product from west Mexico now is imported through McAllen, TX, during the fall and winter to offer a freight advantages for the Midwest and Eastern markets, some product from Jalisco now comes through Nogales during the spring and summer to offer freight advantages to West Coast receivers.
Some U.S. tomato growers now ship from Mexico year-round by sourcing from new growing areas during what traditionally has been the off season. Sonora is a huge area for Mexican grown produce and it continues to expand. It used to be the state of Sinaloa was where the main volume originated.
Virtually all of Mexico’s grapes come from the Caborca and Hermosillo regions of Sonora, with shipments starting in April and continuing into July.
Imported Mexican melons, tomatoes and vegetables from Nogales – grossing about $2800 to Chicago.
U.S. fresh market apples remaining to be shipped are double digit over last season and 97 percent of those apples for hauling are located in three states.
U.S. fresh market apples remaining to be shipped on February 1st were 13 percent higher compared with the 2015-16 shipping season and 9 percent more than the five-year average, according to the February storage report from the U.S. Apple Association. The leading varieties remaining to be shipped are red delicious and gala.
Total fresh market apples remaining to be shipped were 85.7 million bushels, up from 76 million bushels in 2016, but lower than 95.1 million bushels two years ago.
Washington state reported holdings of 76.4 million bushels, or about 89 percent of the total national fresh holdings. Michigan apples remaining to be shipped totaled 4.1 million bushels, or about 5 percent of the remaining supplies. New York’s apple inventories were 2.9 million bushels, or 3 percent of the U.S. total fresh market apples in storage on February 1st.
By variety, the storage report showed that fresh market red delicious holdings were 28.2 million bushels, up from 21.5 million bushels last year but down from 33.8 million bushels two years ago. Gala inventories on hand totaled 16.1 million bushels, up from 12.2 million bushels a year ago and 15.95 million bushels in 2015.
Other fresh market apples remaining in storage 1 were:
- Pink Lady/cripps pink: 4.4 million bushels, up from 3.7 million bushels last year;
- Fuji: 9.3 million bushels, up from 8 million bushels a year ago;
- Golden delicious: 5.3 million bushels, compared with 6 million bushels in 2016;
- Granny smith: 8.4 million bushels, compared with 10.9 million bushels last year; and
- Honeycrisp: 3.2 million bushels, compared with 2.9 million bushels a year ago.
Yakima and Wenatchee Valley, WA apples and pears – grossing about $4500 to Dallas and $6400 to Boston.
Western Michigan apples – grossing about$900 to Chicago and $2700 to Atlanta.