Archive For The “Trucking Reports” Category
Here’s a round up of some major Western U.S. produce shipping areas.
California Citrus Shipments
It has been since early December that extended nights of freezing settled into the San Joaquin Valley of California, and as of early January it was appearing the total loss of shipments to the remaining on-tree crop could be at least 30 percent or more. Officials are hoping for more specific information by the end of January.
Citrus growers are finding everything from almost no damage to complete losses in different blocks, and sometimes those blocks are not that far apart. This has made it really difficult to come up with a good damage estimate number.
Southern California produce shipments- grossing about $4700 to Chicago.
Desert Vegetable Shipments
Meanwhile, California desert vegetable shipments have been more lucky thus far. Although the Imperial Valley and Yuma vegetable shipping areas had freezing weather, damage has been minimual. Some veggies such as lettuce, may look a little “roughed up”, but should be okay for shipping.
Imperial Valley/Yuma District desert veggies – grossing about $6600 to New York City.
Idaho Potato Shipments
Idaho continues to ship spuds primarily from the Upper Valley and the Twin Falls-Burley District. The state is averaging around 1,300 truck load equivalents per week, with a higher percentage than most produce items moving by rail.
Idaho potatoes – grossing about $5000 to Atlanta.
Here’s a round up of big-time apple shipments from New York, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and the leader — Washington State.
New York
This year’s expected record-breaking apple crop has left many New York growers with fruit still on the trees and not enough storage space after the harvest. Still, there should be record loading opportunities for apple haulers this season.
The bountiful 2013 growing season left many growers without enough workers to harvest the apples, not enough bins to place them in and not enough cold-storage capacity. Last summer, New York apple shipments were estimated at a record-setting 32 million bushels, nearly double last year’s harvest that was devasted by freezing weather. That figure for this season could even be low. Some observers see New York apple shipments topping 34 million bushels when all the figures are final.
New York apples – grossing about $2000 to Atlanta.
Pennyslvania
But New York isn’t alone when it comes to record apple shipments this year. In Pennsyvlania, one of the largest operations, Rice Fruit Co. in Gardners, is reporting number setting volume with its apple shipments. Pennsylvania apple shipments should continue through July, until the new crop is harvested starting in August.
Michigan Apple Shipments
Looking at Michigan, its biggest apple shipper, Riverridge Produce Inc. in Sparta is reported record setting loadings. The state should have record volume by the end of the season next summer.
Michigan apples – grossing about $3000 to New York City.
Washington State Apple Shipments
Finally, in Washington state, which ships as many apples as the rest of the states combined, should move about 110 million boxes of fruit this season. That’s down about 9 million boxes from original estimates, but it will still be one of the biggest apple crops on record.
Washington state apples – grossing about $5400 to Dallas.
Numbers are still vague, but one thing is for certain, California citrus shipments will be down this season. Florida is facing a similar situation, but for different reasons.
San Joaquin Valley citrus packers have hired extra workers for inspecting fruit as they try to separate the good from the bad after a freeze last month. Citrus industry officials are reluctant to put a percentage on the damage from nearly a dozen days of subfreezing temperatures, but some citrus packers are estimating damage at between 30 and 50 percent for the entire industry.
This year’s crop was only 15 percent harvested before the freeze hit. At the time it was estimated to be 88 million cartons, down slightly from the previous year.
California citrus and produce – grossing about $4700 to Chicago.
Florida Citrus Shipments
Florida fresh fruit shipments have declined more than 20 percent so far this season because of crop declines, smaller fruit sizes and a later start to the harvesting season.
Total fresh shipments had fallen 24.5 percent December 15, compared with the same point in the 2012-13 season and almost 30 percent compared with 2011-12. Grapefruit shipments have dropped 23.4 percent since last season, fresh oranges 25 percent and tangerines, tangelos and other specialty varieties by 26 percent.
Fresh citrus represents a much smaller segment of the Florida citrus industry, dominated by juice processing, but it is particularly important in Polk County, the top producer of tangerines and tangelos and home to three of the state’s 10 largest packinghouses in Dundee, Haines City and Lake Wales.
The first breakbulk shipment of Chilean winter fruit to arrived by boat in the U.S at the Port of Wilmington (North Carolina) on December 18th. As we get further into the winter, more frequent arrivals are occurring.
The ship held over 756,000 boxes of fresh cherries, blueberries, stone fruit, and table grapes. The imported fruit is stored in the port’s 800,000 on-dock refrigerated warehouse complex before distribution by truck to Eastern markets.
During the winter fruit season from December through April, the Port of Wilmington expects to receive at least 25 shiploads of fruit from various Chilean ports. Wilmington was the first U.S. port to receive fruit from Chile this winter.
In the 2012-13 season, the Port of Wilmington received about 18 million boxes of Chilean fruit, up 22 percent from the previous season.
Exactly how much fruit from Chile will arrive a U.S. ports, which besides Wilmington, is primarily Philadelphia, PA and Long Beach, CA, depends on a number of factors.
Naturally, Mother Nature plays a critical role and those climate conditions during the growing season in Chile has meant slower development, harvest and ultimately arrivals to the U.S. Some freezing weather at critical times also is expected to reduce total volume. Finally, depending on currency values, Chile will ship to Europe and other global markets if better profits are likely.
About halfway through December, California strawberry shipments were already assured of another record-setting season in 2013. Mostly truck loadings have put out more than 193 million trays of berries, up from 191 million in 2012. Thus, with the year ending, California strawberry shipments will definately have its seventh record-setting year in the last eight seasons.Shippers had loaded over 193 million trays as of December 13, topping the 191 million trays produced in all of 2012. Shipments continued an upward trend that began in 2006 with five straight record-setting seasons. A cold and wet spring in 2011 caused the streak to be broken, but growth in shipments has continued since.
A big reason has been an upsurge in acreage. Growers planted on 40,192 acres this year, up from 37,732 in 2012. Another factor was the use of new University of California-developed varieties that yield more fruit per acre.
However, what California had in quantity this year, too often was lacking in quality.
Strawberries are a year-round fruit in California, as winter harvests move south with the sun. The peak season is in the spring and early summer, when all three of the state’s major growing regions — around Watsonville, Santa Maria and Oxnard — are producing berries. About 85 percent of the nation’s strawberry shipments originate in California.
Some growers are switching to organic production. Organic acreage went from 1,776 in 2012 to 2,532 acres this year.
Most California strawberry shipments are now coming out of Ventura County and Orange County.
Southern California produce shipments, including strawberries – grossing about $6800 to New York City.
There will be about 7 millions fewer boxes of Washington state apples shipped from the Yakima and Wenatchee valleys this season, but it still should end up next August being the second largest crop of all time.
Last year’s record apple loadings hit 128.2 million fresh boxes, and is competing with larger New York and Michigan shipments, after devasting freezes hit those states in 2012.
As of December 1, 28 million boxes had been shipped compared to 31.5 million at the same time last year and 25.3 million two years ago. Loadings are still clipping along at 2.7 million boxes per week and should remain at that level into spring, possibly peaking around 3 million per week in January.
The crop’s current standing at 113.3 million boxes is up .1 percent from the November 1 storage report, down 5.5 percent from the August 1 forecast of 119.8 million boxes and pff 11.7 percent from the record 128.2-million-box 2012 crop.
Exports are down 10 percent from a year ago at 8.4 million boxes as of December 1 compared with 9.4 million at the same time in 2012 and 7.8 million in 2011.
Mexico and Canada are Washington’s largest apple export markets.
Mexico normally takes 10 million to 11 million boxes annually but hit 13.6 million last year. Canada averages 5 million to 6 million and last year took 6.35 million boxes.
Thus far this season, Canada is at 1.2 million boxes and Mexico is just getting started at 1 million
Washington state apples – grossing about $6700 to Orlando.
Florida always has light produce volume in the fall and the winter, but the Sunshine state’s produce loads has been even lighter this year. After a tumultuous fall which brought lighter shipments with central Florida’s tomatoes, volume is finally, a long last, picking up. Still, don’t expect spring like volumes.
Yet, the higher volume has actually led to some rate increases.
Florida tomato shipments out of Immokalee have been just okay in terms of quality, but apparently have looked pretty good compared to the early stuff out of the Palmetto-Ruskin area.
Heavy August and September rains stunted yields and certainly did not help the quality in the early fall. As late fall growing conditions become more favorable with moderated temperatures and lower humidity levels, volume and loading opportunties showed some improvement.
Fall tomato shipments yields were down 30 to 70 percent from normal depending on plantings, but the Palmetto-Ruskin region has been increasing.
The quality of the central Florida mature green tomatoes is reported good and Florida is now entering the time of year — early winter is when you should be hauling the best quality tomatoes that have been available in awhile.
Central Florida usually starts in early October with grape and cherry tomatoes and begins harvesting mature-greens by early November.
Central Florida freight rates have increased 10 to 15 percent to places such as New York, Philly and Boston due to increasing volume with tomatoes, strawberries out of Plant City and exisiting light production of veggies.
Central Florida produce – grossing about $3000 to New York City.
Produce shipments can be a crap shoot anytime of the year, but the odds certainly increase when trying to grow and ship perishable products in the wintertime. Sometimes you dodge the bullet, sometimes not. The proverbial bullet was dodged recently in the California and Arizona deserts, although some vegetables may have been grazed. But shipments are pretty much back to normal…At the end of the report is an update on the California citrus freeze.
Vegetable volumes out of the California and Arizona deserts are returning to normal after freezes in the first half of December. Record lows slowed growth across the board, but broccoli and cauliflower were hit the hardest.
Desert lettuce shipments are warmer in the Imperial Valley from such places as Holtville, compared to the Yuma district in Western Arizona.
Iceberg or head letttuc, as well as mixed leaf mostly escaped the freezing weather but cauliflower, broccoli, spring mix, arugula and other leaf items suffered a little bit with damage such as tip burn.
It is too early to get a handle on whether desert celery plantings and its resulting shipments will come off later than their typical early January start because of the December cold.
Whether we are talking Imperial Valley vegetable shipments, or Yuma vegetables shipments, it is particularly wise to keep an eye on the weather, and when you do load, make sure your receiver knows the quality of the product. Winter veggies tend to get beat up by Mother Nature and are not always pretty.
California Citrus Shipments
Early inspections of freeze-damaged citrus in California’s Kern County pegged mandarin orange and lemon losses at around 20 percent, and navel losses at less than 5 percent.
Still, the toll of a Dec. 4-10 cold snap remains unclear in Kern County and in Fresno and Tulare counties…..We’ll still ring in the New Year before we start getting a significant feel for how much California citrus shipments will be affected.
U.S. potato shipments from the fall crop, which will be shipped well into next summer, is down 5 percent from 2012, but never fear, there are still plenty of spuds for hauling.
Idaho’s 2013 potato production is an estimated 132.9 million hundredweight (cwt) , down 6.3 percent from a year ago. In Washington, the crop is estimated at 96 million, up less than 1 percent. Wisconsin’s estimated potato production for the year is 27.9 million hundredweight, down 5.2 percent, and Oregon’s estimate is 21.6 million, down 5.9 percent. Colorado this year is down 1.5 percent to 20.3 million, and Michigan is up 5.4 percent to 16.8 million.
North Dakota’s 2013 potato crop will come in at 22.6 million cwt, down about 10.1 percent from last year. Some were forecasting shipments to be down more than double from last year.
Minnesota potato production dropped from 18.8 million hundredweight in 2012 to 17.5 million this year, a drop of just under 7 percent.
While Idaho potato shipments, and to a lesser extent, Washington state move a significant amount of tubers via the railroads, most shipping areas do not have access to rails. Most produce shipped by rail establish their shipping costs based on truck rates, and the rails tend to under cut those rates.
Meanwhile, trucks continue for the most part to deliver faster and better service, that includes providing a lot more flexibility.
Central Wisconsin potatoes – grossing about $3000 to Atlanta.
Idaho potatoes – about $5500 to New York City.
California citrus shipments could very well will be hit even harder than rather than less from recent freezing temperatures. Initally, close observers in the Central San Joaquin Valley were talking slight to moderate damage, but now you are hearing more serious descriptions such as “moderate to severe” damage.
However, specific results on how bad navels and madrians were hit won’t be known until around New Years.
Temperatures in citrus-growing areas in California’s San Joaquin Valley once again dipped to potentially damaging levels for seven of eight days between December 5th and 11th.
Temperatures below 27 degrees for several hours can damage Navel oranges and lemons, while more sensitive Mandarins are susceptible to damage at 32 degrees.
Frost-protection measures such as wind machines and application of water to the groves can provide three or four degrees of protection.
Approximately 12 to 15 percent of the Navel crop and 20 percent of the Mandarin crop has been harvested, leaving a significant percentage of the crop at risk of damage.
There is no doubt that damage has occurred across the citrus belt.
Damaged fruit will be eliminated from the fresh market and directly shipped to juice plants. For California citrus, juice plants are, by design, a salvage operation for lower-quality fruit.
California citrus and berries – grossing about $4600 to Chicago.