Posts Tagged “feature”
California strawberry shipments are on a normal track, while Washington state cranberry shipments may be in big trouble. Shipments of California strawberries through late September were up slightly over last season.
About 173.8 million crates of fruit had shipped year-to-date through Sept. 26, up from 172.7 million crates last year at the same time, according to the Watsonville-based California Strawberry Commission’s weekly Pink Sheet newsletter. Shipments were down in the Oxnard growing region but up in the Santa Maria and Watsonville/Salinas regions, with Watsonville/Salinas leading the way with 86.1 million crates. Volumes shipping the week ending Sept. 26 were higher than expected, according to the report. About 3.46 million trays shipped, up from a projected total of 3.22 million trays.
Salinas/Watsonville strawberries – grossing about $4800 to Houston.
Washington Cranberry Shipments
Severe drought persists on Washington’s Southwest coast, complicating the region’s cranberry harvest. The lack of rain, however, threatens to extend the harvest, putting berries at risk of rot, frost and ripening into a dark color unsuited to consumer expectations, following the hottest July on record.
The growing season, May through August, was the sixth driest on record. Washington state is the nation’s third leading shipper of cranberries for the fresh market, behind Wisconsin and Massachusetts, which account together for about 90 percent of the nation’s fresh cranberries.
By Full Tilt Marketing
New York, NY— What began as a grassroots effort to celebrate the nutritional benefits of kale as a trending superfood, has grown into a worldwide movement. This year will mark the third annual National Kay Day, which is today.
In recent years, kale’s popularity has grown in both supermarkets and on restaurant menus. In fact, Whole Foods Market now buys and sells more kale than all other greens combined and other retailers have reported triple digit sales increases. This growing interest in kale has growers and manufacturers excited about the opportunity to promote not just kale, but all leafy greens.
This year’s celebration will include online and offline events, including signature events in New York City. The day will kick off with the kale army making an appearance on the Today Show plaza and hosting a kale tasting for media influencers. The day will continue with the founders celebrating a kale lunch with students at a local NYC Public Elementary School, then joining sponsor San Miguel Produce to kick off a Cooking with Kale series at Manhattan’s Food & Finance High School and end with the signature kale party.
In addition, to consumer events, National Kale Day has touched 10 countries, retailers, restaurants and schools with some of the largest school districts in the country including New York Public Schools and Los Angeles Public Schools planning to serve up kale. Dr. Ramsey remarked, “I have been a proponent of brain foods like kale in my practice for years, and there is nothing more exciting than seeing the potential to reach kids early on in their lives and teach them about healthy foods in a fun way.”
National Kale Day is a public event of grassroots volunteers established for the celebration and promotion of the health benefits and culinary versatility of kale.
Full Tilt Marketing is a consulting firm with offices in the Southeast and Midwest. The firm specializes in produce and food marketing. Working with commodity boards and grower/shippers, Full Tilt assists clients with new product development, brand management, retail promotions, online marketing, social media and marketing communications.
While Florida leaves a lot to be desired when it comes to produce trucking in the fall, there are citrus loadings and limited amounts of vegetables.
Navel and fallglo tangerine harvets started the third week of September, with decent loading opportunties coming on in late September. This week, the harvest of navels are underway.
This season, the industry should pack about 12 million cartons of red and white grapefruit, down from the 13 million it produced last season.
Citrus shipments Wrap Up
U.S. citrus shipments fell four percent in 2014-15 season.
About 9.02 million tons of citrus were produced this season. The 2014-15 total is also 49 percent lower than the record 17.8 million tons produced in 1997-98.
Florida accounted for 56 percent of all 2014-15 loadings, California 41 percent, while Texas and Arizona amounted to three percent combined.
With about 97 million boxes, Florida’s orange shipments are eight percent lower than in 2013-14. Florida grapefruit shipments amounted to 13 million boxes, down 18percent.
California’s orange volume fell one percent to 49 million boxes. Grapefruit shipments in the state also fell one percent, but lemon loadings rose nine percent, while tangerine and mandarin volume rose nine percent.
Florida Fall Vegetable Shipments
Light Fall Florida Veggie Shipments will be staring in a few weeks, despite rains occurring nearly on a daily basis. Squash and cucumbers get underway from the Immokalee area the second week of November with bell peppers and eggplants starting only a few days later. One major shipper is Oakes Farms Inc.
Eggplant and other veggies get started in late October from the Loxahatchee area. A primary shipper this is J&J Family of Farms Inc.
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Date shipments over the past 15 years have shown steady increases as newer palms produce more fruit each season.
California date volume should exceed 50 million pounds this season. Bearing acreage over the past five years has averaged 7,700 acres, while date production volume for that time frame averaged 47.5 million pounds.
Dates are harvested in September and October from California’s desert regions. The Coachella Valley is the main production area, though dates are also grown in the desert region of Bard Valley, which straddles the California-Arizona border, and there is limited pickings near Las Vegas.
Dates are grown on a date palm tree that typically grows about 20 feet high. It is a labor-intensive crop that requires much more care than the average tree fruit. Pickers have to be at eye-level with the date bunches seven different times in a five-month-period. From artificial pollination to harvest, in California workers are typically raised to the top of the tree in some type of mechanical device.
Dates are sold from cold storage or the freezer throughout the year as they have an extended shelf life. Demand has been increasing and creating a year-round market, but holiday sales – particularly Thanksgiving, Christmas and Hanukkah are most popular. Lesser holidays popular with dates are Easter and Passover in the spring. There is also a very big demand during the monthlong Muslim Ramadan celebration. Ramadan is a lunar calendar holiday that moves 10-14 days earlier each year. It began in mid-June in 2015 and will have a start date of early June in 2016.
SunDate LLC, headquartered in Coachella, CA. SunDate is a partnership between the date growing operations of Anthony Vineyards and Chuchian Ranch.
Two major date shippers are Atlas Produce & Distribution Inc., in Bakersfield, CA, and Hadley Date Gardens in Thermal, CA.
Southern California citrus and vegetables – grossing about $4200 to Chicago.
Here’s an update on the Michigan apple shipments, as well as U.S. potatoes, and mango imports from South America.
Michigan’s apple growers will harvest approximately 24 million bushels of apples this year for the 2015-16 shipping season. In 2014, Michigan shipped 24 million bushels (1.008 billion pounds) of apples, after shipping a record crop of 30 million bushels in 2013. In 2012 Michigan had only three million bushels, due to extreme weather conditions.
Apples are Michigan’s largest and most valuable fruit crop. The state ranks third in national in apple shipments, behind Washington and New York.
Potatoes
It is estimated U.S. fall potato shipments for 2015-16 will be 404 million hundredweight, slightly higher than the 403.7 million loadings for the 2014-15 season….North Dakota potato loadings are expected to come in at 23.5 million cwt., down 1.6% from a year ago.
Mango Imports
Peak U.S. arrivals of mangos from Brazil are expected to begin arriving this week, while imports from Ecuador will be arriving late this year.
The Brazilian season, which started in August, is running a little lighter than last year’s crop, although it’s on par with volumes from previous seasons. Total imports are expected to reach 6.7 million boxes by the time it wraps up in November.
Ecuador mango imports should be delayed this season because of cool weather. While shipments usually ramp up in October, sizable volumes could be delayed to as late as November. Additionally, it is estimated cooler weather could cut yields by 20 to 25 percent.
The popularity of organic products with consumers has reached an all-time high, according to the Organic Trade Association, in Washington, D.C. The group issues an annual survey on organic sales trends.
The industry is expecting growth to continue, as organic becomes “more mainstream and conventional grocers continue to increase their interest in the industry.
In 2014, traditionally conventional grocers not only increased their interest in organic but they also indicated they would continue to carry organic products. For example, Safeway was mentioned as having established itself a veteran with its O organic line. Major retailers, such as Kroger, Target, Wal-Mart, and Costco have declared their interest in organic as a part of their future growth strategies.
“Obviously, the numbers show tremendous growth, with consumers driving organics as a whole, and that’s not going to change,” said Laura Batcha, CEO and executive director of the OTA.
Batcha emphasized the only restraint on the category is supply.
“We hear from folks across the supply chain that the limiting factor is the availability of product, and we’re seeing so many retailers not only getting into organics but making it a strategic priority,” she said.
That includes regions in which organics had not been big sellers in the past, including the Midwest and Southeast, Batcha said.
“Our expanding customer and grower base goes to prove that organics is not going away,” said Cherie France, marketing manager with Porterville, Calif.-based Homegrown Organic Farms.
Batcha pointed to markets in the Southeast, in which 68% of households are purchasing organics, as showing unprecedented sales of organics.
Recently aboard the International Space Station, astronauts got a rare treat: fresh lettuce. In space, food is freeze-dried, prepackaged, and often not very tasty.
NASA’s Veggie Project had on goals – to bring salad to space. The result was red romaine lettuce.
“It’s just one of those things that we have to learn if we’re going to step into the solar system and go to Mars,” says Trent Smith, the Veggie project manager. “How will you grow your plants?”
It turns out, farming in space is not as simple as you’d think. First, there’s the problem of water. On Earth, gravity pulls it down toward the roots, but in space, it can ball up in the corner of a pot and leave the roots high and dry. Smith’s team has developed a solution: a “pillow” of aerated clay, to which you add water. The clay provides structure for the roots to spread out in zero G.
Second, plants also need fresh air to breathe. On Earth, wind keeps fresh air coming, but inside the space station, there is no wind. So fans must constantly circulate air.
Finally there’s the issue of light. The space station is whipping around the Earth fast: “Every 90 minutes there’s a new sunrise, so for a plant, that would be extremely confusing,” Smith says. The Veggie team added some artificial lights to keep the orbiting lettuce on an Earthly schedule.
The system took years for engineers on Earth to develop. But growing Monday’s salad on the space station didn’t take long at all.
“July 8 it started. We had 33 days of growth, and the plants were just fantastic, I mean, big, large leaves,” Smith says.
The astronauts went with a simple balsamic dressing and reported that the space salad tasted out of this world.
This wasn’t the first time astronauts had grown lettuce in space. Last year, astronauts grew an equal amount of tasty greens. They were frozen and returned to Earth for careful analysis — though Smith suspects the crew at the time may have sneaked a bite: “I am fairly certain we didn’t get all the lettuce home last time,” he says.
This lettuce could be just the tip of the iceberg. There are plans for cabbage, cherry tomatoes and even potatoes. As we leaf into the final frontier.
Here’s a round up of California produce shipments ranging from kiwifruit, to lettuce and honeydew.
California’s kiwifruit shipments should be a similar to last year, with initial production estimates pegged at around 6.5-6.8 millon 7-pound-tray-equivalents.
Last season, volume finished with about 7.4 million tray equivalents. Harvest should get underway for most growers the first two weeks of October. Fruit can be held in storage and marketed until about April of next year.
About 75 to 80 percent of production will be shipped within the U.S., with Mexico and Canada being the p;rimary export markets.
California Lettuce
California lettuce shipments have been down and will continue to be significantly lower than normal shipments until loadings shift to Huron in the San Joaquin Valley the second week of October.
Salinas lettuce continues to have quality problems because of trip digit temperatures this fall, which is resulting in seed seem that reduces yield and weight of the lettuce heads. Lettuce shipments out of Huron will last about three to four weeks as the new harvest of lettuce begins from the desert areas of California’s Imperial Valley and Yuma, AZ.
California honeydew
California honeydew shipments from California are down, partly due to less acreage planted due to the California drought. The state’s water shortage has growers cautious about overextending themselves with too many supplies and too little water.
Central San Joaquin Valley fruits and vegetables – grossing about $6000 to Orlando.
Salinas Valley vegetables – grossing about $5200 to Detroit.
If there’s any doubt Idaho is the king of potato shippers, consider the state is home to about 600 farms which grow potatoes for the fresh market and process.
Overall, potatoes are grown on approximately 324,000 aces, and will ship about 13 billion pounds of potatoes this season. That would fill about 500 football stadiums 10 feet high.
By early September, 50 percent of the potato harvest in western Idaho had been completed. The eastern side of the state was facing greater challenges with a lot of moisture and heat. Harvesting will finish in mid-October, with quality looking good.
Approximately 40 percent of Idaho potato shipments go to the fresh market.
Idaho potatoes – grossing about $5100 to Philadelphia.
U.S. Potato Shipments for 2014-15
About 442 million cwt. of potatoes were produced in the U.S. in 2014, 2 percent more than in 2013.
Table stock (fresh) shipments accounted for about 107 million cwt. of that total.
About 1.05 million acres of potatoes were harvested in the U.S. in 2014, up slightly from 2013.
The average yield last season, 421 cwt. per acre, was 7 percent higher than in 2013.
While production was up in 2014, prices were lower. The value of the 2014 crop was about $3.66 billion, down 7% from 2013. The average price, $8.88 per cwt., was 87 cents lower than the price for spuds harvested in 2013.
Of the 442 million cwt. total, 404 million cwt. were harvested in the fall.
California’s upcoming Navel orange shipments are expected to be 86 million 40 pound cartons.
Of those cartons, 83 million are projected to be produced in the three-county Central Valley region comprising District 1 and represents an 8.5 percent increase over the 76 million cartons shipped last year.
The crop is believed to be at least the same as last year and probably bigger. Fruit size is reported to be larger, and fruit set — especially on late varieties — is better in most groves. The improved fruit size is attributed to timely rainfall and good growing conditions following petal fall last spring. Early rains this fall could result in additional growth that would equate to more cartons.
The external quality is very good and the extended periods of high temperatures this summer have increased Brix, so flavor is expected to be excellent this season. The crop is maturing well, with harvest expected to begin in early October.
Thousands of acres have been removed during the current California drought. The estimate of a 2,000-acre reduction in citrus groves is believed by many observers as probably conservative, in which case shipments could eventually come in below the 86 million carton estimate.
Central San Joaquin Valley fruits and vegetables – grossing about $6400 to New York City.