Archive For The “Trucking Reports” Category
Mas Melons and Grapes of Rio Rico, AZ has spring shipments of honeydew, seedless watermelon, orange candy melons and hard squash. The company also ships a broad variety of table grapes, including early sweets, sweet celebrations, sweet globes, Ivory, perlette, sugraone, flame and some other new late reds.
The fruit and vegetable shipper has over 25 years of experience in the industry and its core items are melons and grapes. This also will be the first time for handling spring hard squash.
Mas has just wrapped up its winter season and is transitioning to northern Mexico for the start of its busy season in early April. This is when the company offers all of its commodities.
The shipper’s seedless watermelon and table grape programs will be in peak volume following ideal growing conditions last winter. It will be loading trucks with both cartons and bins of seedless watermelon and a whole lineup of table grapes through spring and summer. Honeydew and orange candy melons should have supply until early July.
The Georgia Department of Agriculture and the Vidalia Onion Committee announced April 12th as the official pack date for the 2022 Vidalia onion season. Shipments can begin that day.
“In the 2022 season, approximately 10,000 acres of Vidalia onions were planted by 60 registered farmers across 20 southeastern Georgia counties,” said VOC Chairman Cliff Riner. “Representing about 40% of the sweet onion market across America, Vidalia onions are sold in all 50 states and most of Canada.”
Originally discovered by accident in the 1930s during the Great Depression, Vidalia onions have grown to be considered as a favorite across America. The Vidalia Onion Act of 1986 granted the trademark of the name “Vidalia onions” and defined the growing region in South Georgia. Vidalia onions are grown from a distinctive Granex seed, then packed and sold on or after the official pack date annually.
Only available for a limited time each year, Vidalia onions hitting grocery store shelves often signals spring has sprung for fans near and far from the onions’ home state of Georgia. The pack date is determined by growing season soil and weather conditions to ensure the highest quality Vidalia onions. The Vidalia Onion Advisory Panel unanimously voted April 12th as the 2022 pack date.
The pack date rings in the start of the Vidalia onion season, where shoppers can get their hands on the famous seasonal treat between April to August. Known for their sweet, mild flavor, these onions compliment any dish – from soups to salads and even desserts.
Shuman Farms of Reidsville, GA reports collectively with its family of farms, it grows, packs, and ships 2,200 acres of Vidalia onions in a roughly 10,000-acre industry.
The company notes this year’s crop has good quality with a variety of sizing available. Shuman Farms is a year-round grower, packer, and shipper of premium sweet onions from Vidalia, Peru, and Texas.
California Giant Berry Farms is expecting big volumes of a full berry patch led by the vigorous Florida and Southern California strawberry shipments.
“Florida strawberries are currently hitting their peak. We’re seeing a week-over-week increase in top quality fruit, and we’re expecting solid volumes out of Florida through late March,” said J.T. Tipton district manager at California Giant Berry Farms.
“Simultaneously, mild winter weather conditions, coupled with healthy plants have pushed our Southern California strawberry supply about 15% ahead of where it was last year at the same time.”
However, Tipton echoes industry-wide challenges that have plagued produce since the start of the pandemic. Inflation, labor issues and logistics are still problematic, despite Florida peaking and Southern California’s peak volumes being on the horizon.
“We’re anticipating peak volumes out of Oxnard to start in late March and throughout April. Santa Maria is not far behind with their peaks anticipated in April throughout May,” he said.
Watsonville and Salinas started harvesting in early March and is expected to hit its peak in June. Overall, very strong volume in is expected in May.
For California Giant Berry Farms’ director of bushberry supply, Markus Duran, the optimistic outlook is shared.
The Florida blueberry season is just getting underway a potential loss of 10-15% looming. However, the company still expects a strong domestic blueberry season.
Additionally, California Giant Berry Farm’s Oxnard organics program has increased production every week since the beginning of December, with its peak strategically planned earlier than ever, perfect for meeting ever-growing consumer demand for stateside blueberries. Peak volumes out of Oxnard will occur from mid-March through May.
For the remaining berry patch — raspberries and blackberries — positivity is shared. California Giant’s acreage of bush berries has increased across the board, making a consistent supply of exceptional fruit available year-round.
Colombia plans to increase avocado exports to the U.S. by 30 percent this year, after exporting 2,376 tons of avocados to the U.S. a year ago.
Corpohass reports growers are forecasting exports to the U.S. will continue increasing by 40 percent in 2023 and 50 percent in 2024. Corpohass promotes the production and marketing of Columbian avocados.
The organization has 262 farms capable of exporting up to 19,566 acres, and there are 313 farms under surveillance (for qualification) adding up to 22,823 acres.
Colombia in 2021 had a growth of 25 percent in tons exported to the world, while in value the growth was 39 percent compared to 2020.
Corpohass reports exports have already exceeded $200 million to 34 destinations around the world. During 2022 Corpohass expects a similar growth, of 25 percent to 30 percent.
REEDLEY, CA — Fruit World, a family-owned, grower-shipper of organic and conventional citrus and more, is reporting a strong season for their premium specialty citrus, including organic Minneola tangelos, Blood oranges and Cara Cara oranges. While California growers are experiencing shortened seasons of navel and mandarin oranges, Fruit World expects a gap-free and strong transition to Valencia season.
“Between last year’s heavy crop and early summer heat, the state has lower production volumes of navels and mandarins, but we’re maintaining good quantities to ship through an early season end of late-March to early-April,” said Bianca Kaprielian, Fruit World co-founder and CEO. “Ending the season early ensures high quality and exceptional color throughout. And since citrus is an alternate bearing crop, we predict a return to steady volumes next season.”
Fruit World expects a seamless transition from navels to Valencias by mid-April. The company anticipates consistent volumes of the summer variety, especially as the season ramps up in May, with availability through the beginning of October.
“We’re also seeing impressive volumes of quality fruit for our specialty citrus varieties, and expect to be shipping into April,” Kaprielian continued. “The overall quality is top notch, and supply is strong for our Minneolas, Blood oranges and Cara Caras, with peak flavor expected from now through the end of the season.”
This is also shaping up to be a banner year for organic lemons from both the Desert (District 3) and Central Valley (District 1) regions, with load volumes available weekly and excellent ad opportunities into May.
Kaprielian stated, “Our statewide growing regions provide us with year-round supply of lemons and orange varieties. In addition to coolers in the desert and Fillmore, we offer consolidated pickup—including desert production—at our cooler in Reedley.”
Shipments of California strawberries continue to increase this month building towards a peak in April.
Well-Pict Berries of Watsonville, CA grows its Southern California strawberry varieties on approximately 1,200 acres in Oxnard, CA because the coastline provides moderate temperatures and a 12-month growing season.
Shipments both conventional and organic berries are expected to be similar to recent years, Well-Pict reports. Peak loadings begin towards the end of March, beginning of April.
Naturipe Farms of Salinas, CA has increased strawberry acreage in Oxnard and additional acreage throughout the company’s main growing regions in California. It’s Southern California shipments will peak in April.
While the company will have its best volume in spring, it also expects good volumes of fresh strawberries throughout the year.
Naturipe has increased its organic strawberries acreage this year over 20 percent.
Naturipe is promoting bigger packs of strawberries this year to help counter higher freight rates. By shipping 2-pound packs, the company can get 14 percent more weight on a truck versus the 1-pound pack.
Divine Flavor LLC of Nogales, AZ is ramping up Southern hemisphere grape volume from Peru, Chile, and South Africa.
The grower-distributor anticipates a strong second-half of the season on premium red and white seedless grapes coming from those regions with their new vineyards in Jalisco, Mexico at Grupo Alta.
The company report the next 6-8 weeks should provide plenty of volume for premium red seedless.
White seedless grape supplies will also continue steadily in decent volumes of Sweet Globe and Autumn Crisp coming from Peru, Chile, and South Africa.
Divine Flavor has been involved with the import deal for the past five years and the company has established strong roots with growers such as Ecosac located in Puira, Peru and Santa Elena and Unifrutti who have growing regions throughout Chile.
The different growing areas complement each other to provide grapes from November through July.
The month of March will see more shipments of specialty varieties such as the company’s Jellyberries and Candy Hearts, followed by the Chilean Muscat Beauty. Divine Flavor will transition to their Jalisco season at Grupo Alta the first weeks of April starting with Timpson, followed by Sweet Globe and Autumn Crisp, all premium white seedless, and finally in this region; Cotton Candy.
Florida Classic Growers Inc. of Dundee- FL looks to start harvesting Central Florida fields the last week of March.
The shipper expects to have blueberries through the month of April and into the first week of May.
Freezing temperatures in January may have delayed the start of the harvest about a week later than normal, but the outlook for the crop remains good.
With berries from Mexico and Chile expected to fade at the end of March, Florida blueberries will be in prime position for big demand during April.
The Florida blueberry crop is doing well despite a pretty hard freeze.
Generally, Florida blueberry acreage is increasing, but not as rapidly as a decade ago. The number of growers may be declining as smaller growers leave the business.
The USDA reported that Florida’s blueberry acreage in 2020 was 4,400 acres, up from 3,500 acres in 2010 but down from 5,100 acres in 2019.
Vanguard International USA, Inc. of Issaquah, WA is reported its Peruvian grapes supplied by Jack Salute are looking exceptional with great size, color, and taste. The bunch formation is just where it should be.
Harvesting is approaching the end of the red variety grapes, with the season wrapping up the last month with green variety grapes.
The operations are moving seamlessly with a steady and organized flow from fruit picking, then onto the packing house, and finally sending the grapes off in vessels. The harvest has entered the last half of the season and optimism is surrounding the final half of this 2021-2022 grape season in terms of both fruit quality and market demand.
The U.S. is the number one destination for Peruvian grape exports.
Exports of avocado from Peru are expected to grow by 8 to 10 percent in 2022 compared to the previous year. Growth likely will be with exports to Europe, but supply problems in the U.S. could change these projections.
An article in Agaria.pe cites numbers from Peruvian avocado growers’ association ProHass. It notes 2021 was already a year of substantial growth, increasing 20 percent compared to 2020 to hit 483,00 tons of shipped fruit.
This increase was mainly expected to come from exports destined for the Netherlands which supply the EU.
The season for Peru avocados starts in April or early May, when it ripens enough to reach the quality for the U.S. market. According to the report, this allows Peru to get in on consumption trends associated with July 4th and the Labor Day long weekend in September.
Last year Peru’s trade minister lauded the growth registered in the value of Peru’s avocado exports. At the time it was noted 2021 exports, not including the final two months of August and September, were already up 14 percent compared to the entire 2020 season.