Archive For The “Trucking Reports” Category
With the absence of major hurricanes, storms, heatwaves or freezes in California, Florida or Texas citrus shipping areas, growers are reporting good quality.
The January 10 citrus crop estimate from the USDA forecasts a harvest of 125.5 million boxes of oranges for the current season, up from 124 million last year.
The grapefruit forecast is 15.7 million boxes, up from 13.8 last season.
Lemon and tangerine production is down.
Growers are expected to ship 20.4 million boxes of lemons, compared to 24.1 million in 2018-19, and 23 million boxes of tangerines, down from about 27 million last year.
Booth Ranches LLC of Orange Cove, CA is in full swing harvesting, packing and shipping navel oranges, The company expects to wrap up navel shipments by late June and is reporting excellent quality and color.
Limoneira Co. of Santa Paula, CA is picking lemons in California’s San Joaquin Valley and in the coastal region. The operation reports good quality.
Florida Citrus Shipments
Florida Classic Gowers Inc. of Dundee, FL will transition from navels to valencias in mid-February and continue shipping those through May. Then the summer storage orange shipments will get underway, continuing through June.
Florida Citrus Mutual of Lakeland, FL reports a good citrus shipping season and expects it to continue through the second half of the season.
Texas Citrus Shipments
Texas Citrus Mutual of Mission, TX sees good quality with Lower Rio Grande citrus being shipped out of South Texas. Product is split with 70 percent of the citrus volume consisting of grapefruit and 30 percent oranges.. The company was completing their navels and early variety shipments in mid January, and was planning to start valencias in February,
Lone Star Citrus Growers, Mission, TX reports good quality grapefruit, although volume is down from last season, but with larger sized fruit.
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Lower Rio Grande Valley citrus as well as Mexican produce crossings – grossing about $3200 to Chicago, about $5700 to New York City.
World Direct Shipping of Palmetto, FL., has extended an agreement with Port Manatee, and added a third vessel to its service.
The company offers three-day transits between Mexico and the Southeast, Midwest and Northeast U.S. for refrigerated fresh produce and other cargo, according to a news release.
The agreement is good through 2026. World Direct Shipping began service at Port Manatee in 2014 with a single vessel from Veracruz, Mexico. Service now includes Tuxpan and Tampico, Mexico.
A new vessel arrived first arrived at Port Manatee January 10th, carrying 231 high-cube, 40-foot refrigerated containers from China to be added to the World Direct Shipping service. The move enhances the company’s equipment fleet in trade across the Gulf of Mexico.
The company’s cargo volume rose 90 percent in 2019 from the previous year totaling nearly 50,000 20-foot-equivalent container units.
“World Direct Shipping has enjoyed a solid, trusted partnership with Port Manatee from the beginning,” Carlos Diaz, World Direct Shipping director, said in the release. “As our operations have expanded, the port has worked diligently to keep pace with our needs.”
A fungus known as pestalotiopsis, causes berries, leaves and roots to rot and turn brown and is bound to reduce total Florida strawberry shipments this season. By how much is not yet known.
A warm, wet winter allowed the fungus to take hold in December. It is spread by water and Florida had a lot of rain December. Warm weather also helps the fungus spread.
Florida ranks second to California in domestic strawberry shipments and plays an important role in strawberry volume during the winter months. Most of Florida’s 10,000 acres of strawberry farms are in Hillsborough County to the east of Tampa and Manatee County to the south.
Hillsborough County’s Plant City is the center of the industry. The town’s annual strawberry festival held in late February drew more than 550,000 people last year.
The current outbreak of the fungus affected about 25 percent of the state’s strawberry fields and about half of the strawberries are grown organically,
One of the growers affected was Wish Farms of Plant City, FL who reported a loss of about 80 acres of organic strawberries. While it was described as a setback the company emphasized it was not a knockout punch and conditions were improving.
Florida strawberries – grossing about $2000 to Chicago.
California navel orange shipments may be down nearly 20 percent this season, although growers and shipper are not complaining considering the over production and poor markets of last season.
There was a huge navel orange crop with shipments hitting 80 million 40-pound cartons, and this doesn’t even count fruit that fell to the ground and product so small it didn’t make grade.
California Citrus Mutual of Exeter, CA is pleased the navel orange forecast for the 2019-20 season is down to 73 million cartons. As of mid January about 20 percent of California’s navels had been harvested, very similar to a year ago.
California grower-shippers are expecting ample supplies, large sizes and good-quality fruit.
Johnston Farms of Edison, CA believes there will be good supplies, better sizing and quality on navels over last year. The company has just wrapped up its satsuma mandarin season and is transitioning to murcotts. Good quality is reported.
Shipper, packer Cecelia Packing Corp. of Orange, CA expects navel volume to slow down a little in late March or early April since there will not be a lot of late varieties this year.
SunWest Fruit Co. Inc. of Parlier, CA is experiencing increased volume with its cara cara navel oranges. The grower, shipper points out its increased volume with cara cara navels has not come at the expense of its navel orange loadings.
Southern California oranges – grossing about $6200 to New York City.
By American Mushroom Institute
Avondale, PA — Mushroom growers are entering 2020 with record shipments volumes, increasing retail prices and solid demand for fresh mushrooms, according to the American Mushroom Institute.
The September shipment report from the Mushroom Council™ shows domestic mushroom production set a new all-time high. This was the fourth consecutive new monthly high and reflects steady sales growth throughout the summer months. Both June and August volume exceeded 80 million pounds for the first time ever, indicating that mushroom sales are strong year-round. Combined shipments (domestic plus imports) also hit new record highs.
Mark Lang, MBA, Ph.D., University of Tampa, analyzed the recent data trends for the Council. “As mushrooms become a staple item for many Americans and more people start consuming them, demand has risen steadily for the past decade,” said Lang.
About American Mushroom Institute
The American Mushroom Institute (AMI), headquartered in Avondale, Pennsylvania, is a national voluntary trade association representing the growers, processors and marketers of cultivated mushrooms in the US and industry suppliers worldwide. Members of AMI produce 90 percent of all cultivated mushrooms nationwide, which include Agaricus, Crimini, Portabella and specialty mushrooms. For more information, visit www.americanmushroom.org.
Improvements are coming to the Port of Wilmington, DE, which is a key facility for U.S. fruit imports.
In an agreement with the Diamond State Port Corp. last September, GT USA Wilmington was granted exclusive rights to operate and develop the Port of Wilmington for 50 years.
The beginning of that era has already seen improvements to the port and more are coming.
GT USA’s concession includes the full management and development of the port’s existing container volumes of 350,000 TEUs (20-foot equivalent units) per year, which is forecast to more than double in the years to come as a consequence of this deal, according to a news release.
The Port of Wilmington, which began operations in 1923, is the top North American port for imports of fresh fruit into the U.S.
Over the next nine years, Gulftainer plans to invest $580 million in the port, including approximately $410 million for a new 1.2 million TEU container facility at DuPont’s former Edgemoor site, which was acquired by the Diamond State Port Corp. in 2016.
Earlier this year, GT USA Wilmington took delivery of three 45-ton reach stackers from KoneCranes Inc.
The delivery is part of a larger order, which includes nine 41-ton Rubber Tired Gantry (RTG) cranes, and is part of the $500 million-plus investment into the Port of Wilmington and a new container terminal development at Edgemoor.
Improvements coming
Dave Harriss, vice president of commercial operations GT USA Wilmington, the U.S. arm of ports and logistics company Gulftainer, said there is $170 million earmarked for the Port of Wilmington terminal.
“We’ve probably spent about $49 million so far on new equipment and a lot of infrastructure changes,” he said.
The port has reinforced its piers, changed the traffic flows and created a terminal operating system that tracks cargo flows for both containers and breakbulk, he said.
“I suspect we will have close to $140 million spent by the end of 2020 because we’re adding an additional two warehouses and taking our refrigerated square feet up over a million square feet and our dry capacity up to 300,000 square feet,” he said.
The Port of Wilmington is located on just more than 300 acres, he said, and GT USA Wilmington is changing the operating structure and will allow the company to squeeze more capacity out of those 300 acres.
For example, a master gate system will replace individual fences around tenant facilities, allowing greater consolidation of operating areas. Dole and Chiquita are legacy customers for the port and both have renewed long-term commitments.
GT USA Wilmington is taking the port’s container footprint from 300,000 TEUs up to 600,000 TEUs by going to a stacked configuration instead of a grounded configuration, he said.
In the past year, the port has experienced an increase from 350,000 TEUs to 408,000 TEUs, he said.
Breakbulk is still a vital part of the port’s fruit business, though container volume is bigger business. About two breakbulk ships come to the port each week, Harriss said.
Looking ahead, he said GT USA Wilmington will continue to invest in the legacy port facilities at the Port of Wilmington, with coming changes more pronounced and visual. Improvements accomplished so far include reinforcing the piers, laying in fiber optics and installing new wi-fi systems.
“Now the big visual changes are going to take place after the winter season,” he said.
“You’re going to see the gantry cranes coming in and the look and feel of the place is going to change,” he said, noting the new gate complex and a new refrigerated warehouse.
Groundbreaking also will occur at the Edgemoor site. That terminal facility will be strictly oriented to handling containers and is expected to handle about 1.2 million TEUs.
“We think it will be open for business in 2023,” he said.
The Port of Wilmington will remain a mixed use facility while Edgemoor will be geared to handle big container ship operators, and will have a 240,000-square-foot-high cube refrigerator space.
Fruit trends
Considering trends in fruit imports, Harriss thinks that the South American trade will continue to edge up its share of containerized business versus breakbulk, but that there will always be a need for breakbulk shipments.
In terms of suppliers, he pointed to rising volumes from Peru.
“I think that Peru is going to come out swinging this year and volumes from Peru are going to be robust,” he said.
As of the New Year there were 14 percent more apples in the U.S. remaining to be shipped than last season.
The U.S. Apple Association of Falls Church, VA reports U.S. fresh market apples remaining in storages as of January 1st totaled 103.97 million (42-pound) bushels.
The U.S. Apple report notes the total number of apples in storage (fresh and for processing) on January 1 was 144.1 million bushels, 15 percent greater than a year ago and 3 percent above the 5-year average for that date.
Fresh apple variety holdings with percentage change from a year ago were:
- Cosmic Crisp: 175,238 bushels (first year);
- Red delicious: 22.35 million bushels, down 9 percent
- Gala: 22.2 million bushels, up 22 percent;
- Fuji: 12.7 million bushels, up 7 percent;
- Granny smith: 12.6 million bushels, up 35 percent;
- Honeycrisp: 10.32 million bushels, up 31 percent;
- Golden delicious: 6.7 million bushels, up 60 percent;
- Cripps pink/Pink Lady: 5.32 million bushels, up 14 percent.
By Chilean Fresh Fruit Association
After a 12-day journey from Chile, the first West Coast break bulk vessel of the season, Ice River, arrived to the Port of Los Angeles on, January 9. The ship unloaded 4,500 pallets of fresh grapes, cherries, peaches, nectarines, plums and blueberries that will be hitting retail shelves this week.
The entire SSA Marine operations team, including Kevin Nielsen, Terminal Manager and Lacey Patalano, Office Administration, were excited to receive the Ice River vessel, and look forward to receiving weekly Chilean fresh fruit vessels now thru April. Steve Hattendorf, Western Region Merchandiser for the Chilean Fresh Fruit Association (CFFA), greeted the first West Coast vessel of the 2019-2020 Chilean winter fruit season and toured the 14 acre facility in San Pedro, California.
Winter has definitely arrived, but shoppers can get a taste of summer throughout the winter months, courtesy of Chile. Cherries, blueberries, grapes and stone fruit (peaches, plums and nectarines) are now in-market, with merchandising support available to retailers through the U.S. and Canada. Says Karen Brux, Managing Director of the CFFA, “Demos, digital coupons, kids cooking classes, and social media contests are just some of the programs we’re currently running with retailers big and small. We’re also further supporting retail sales through our consumer campaign, which includes extensive social media promotions, as well as our new “Super Fruit Bowl” campaign that’s currently running with ESPN.” Consumers can go to www.chileanfreshfruitbowl.com for a chance to win 2 tickets to the big game on February 2!
The Chilean season is just starting to ramp up. Through January 6, Chile had exported the following volumes to the U.S.
- Cherries 4,386 tons
- Blueberries 30,194 tons
- Grapes: 17,067 tons
- Nectarines: 5,114 tons
- Peaches: 5,419 tons
- Plums: 2,276 tons
The New Year is expected to bring big time California strawberry shipments during the spring and early summer peak season.
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The California Strawberry Commission of Watsonville reports the primary reason is due to an anticipated small increase in acreage. Fall plantings, which will produce fruit during the traditional winter, spring and summer months, were reported at 26,928 acres for 2020, up from 25,868 last year.
Assuming the weather cooperates, 2020 California strawberry shipments could hit record levels from Easter (April 12) to Independence Day (July 4), according to the commission.
Summer plantings for fall production will continue its upward trend of recent years, reaching 7,185 acres this year, up from 7,089 in 2019.
During the past five years, greater yielding strawberry varieties have allowed growers to reach record production while acreages have declined.
A significant increase in Chilean blueberry exports are expected this season, while Chilean grape exports could see a small decline. Additionally, with more volume in Chilean cherry exports, this should translate into more fruit from that South American country arriving on U.S. shores.
The Chilean Fresh Fruit Association reports grapes easily account for the largest Chilean fruit export to the U.S., representing nearly 40 percent of all the Chilean fruit shipped here. A drought in Chile is being blamed for an expected slight decrease in export volumes. Official estimates for the 2019-20 season are only 1.6 percent lower than last season.
It is estimated that about 78.5 million boxes will be exported to the U.S. this year, which, which would mean only about 1.3 million boxes less than the previous season. Blueberries, cherries and the stone fruits are expected to make up the difference over the next four to five months.
In 2017-18 there were 6.2 million boxes of Flame Seedless exported to the United States, while last season (2018-19) volume dropped to 2.1 million boxes. Flame Seedless has been an industry standard for decades but is being replaced with newer varieties such as Timco and Allison. Timco volume grew by 61 percent and Allison by 72 percent in the past year.
Chilean grape shipments began in late December and should increase through January and continue into May.
Cherries from Chile have been in the U.S. marketplace for a couple of months with shipments continuing and increasing through January. The vast majority of Chilean cherries are exported to China.
Chilean fruit companies are projecting that they will export about 42 million five kilogram cartons this year, which will represent a 16 percent increase over last season.
North America receives about 60 percent of Chilean blueberry exports. With organic “blues,” North America accounts for 96 percent the Chilean exports. Chilean fresh blueberry exports are expected to grow by about 4 percent during the 2019-20 season led by organics.
Chilean stone fruits account for less than 10 percent of the country’s fruit exports to the U.S.