Posts Tagged “feature”
Washington state has new crops of potatoes, pears and apples now being 
shipped to point across North America.
In the Skagit Valley, located just north of Seattle, red, yellow, white and even a few purple potatoes are now providing loads. Much of the activity centers around the town of Mount Vernon. This isn’t the heavest volume produce area in the state, but it has a reputation for having consistent quality. That reduces chances of claims and rejections for the trucker.
Washington’s main potato shipping area is in the Columbia Basin in the southern part of the state, that also extends into the Umatilla Basin of Oregon. This region is averaging nearly 900 truckload equivalents of potato shipments a week. The Columbia Basin also is shipping dry onions.
The Yakima and Wenatchee valleys are now shipping the new crop of pears. Oregon shipments will be up slightly from a year ago with 10.6 million 44-pound equivalent boxes forecast. Washington state may be down slightly from last year with about 19.1 million 44-pound boxes. Although the Northwest is expected to have six percent fewer pear loads this season, it still exceeds the five-year average for shipments by about two percent.
Between Washington state and Oregon, the two states account for about 75 percent of the nation’s pear volume.
As has been reported in several recent stories on HaulProduce.com, a huge apple crop is still being forecast, with loadings expected to be brisk this season as Washington state works to fill voids in Michigan and New York state, who are shipping less apples due to weather related problems.
Columbia Basin potatoes and onions – grossing about $5600 to New York City.
Washington apple and pears – about $3700 to Chicago.
Produce haulers found plenty of potatoes for hauling out of Idaho last year 
(season) and this time around there will be even more, if predictions hold true.
The nation’s biggest shipper of potatoes expects to have a volume for the 2012-13 shipping season that is 8 percent more than a year ago. Nationally, 5 percent more spuds are forecast to be shipped.
Idaho has a whopping 345,000 acres of potatoes planted. It’s true that the early variety norkotah russets harvest has been underway about a month. However, the tale of how many loads will be available this season comes with the main variety from Idaho, the russet burbanks. Still, with 25,000 more acres of spuds in the grown this year, Idaho most likely will have a huge amount of shipments.
Of course, not all of these loads will be by truck. Potatoes are a prime candiate for rail shipments every year – and the railroads do haul a significant amount, particularly out of Idaho.
Nationwide, total planted acreage is estimated at 1.15 million. The figure includes plantings from all four season, with fall plantings being about 1 million acres alone.
The actual potato volume for the fall season will have a better handle come November 9th when The USDA will issue a new crop estimate.
A primary threat to a reduction in loading opportunities is if an early, hard frost or snow hits the Idaho farming areas. This could damage potato crops. Thus, farmers will be harvesting quickly as possible through October to beat cold weather.
Idaho potatoes – grossing about $4300 to Atlanta; $5500 to New York.
California fall produce shipments are in full mode, although this certainly does not mean the volume is there you normally find 
during the late spring and summer.
One of the best hauls continues to be table grapes out of the San Joaquin Valley. It is providing big volume and is one the finest quality crops in recent memory. That shouldstranslate into a reduction of claims and rejected loads. Grapes are averaging about 2,000 truck loads per week. Good volume also continues from the San Joaqun Valley with peaches, plums and nectarines although shipments are now in a seasonal decline.
If there is one segment of the produce industry capable of over producing on a scale of the potato industry, it is the growers of tomatoes. Vine ripe tomatoes abound in California with shipments coming out of Ventura County, the San Diego area, as well as Mexican product originating from Baja California. However, the biggest tomato volume is with mature greens grown in the San Joaquin Valley as well as areas located between the valley and the San Francisco Bay area (such as Tracy).
In the Salinas Valley, vegetable loads remain pretty consistent, led by head lettuce, then celery, plus broccoli and cauliflower. Plenty of other vegetables help fill partial loads as well….Although strawberry shipments are lower from the Watsonsville District, they are still accounting for over 600 truck loads per week.
Salinas Valley strawberries and vegetables – grossing about $7000 to New York City.
San Joaquin Valley grapes – about $4800 to Chicago.
Consumers tend to absolutely love Asian pears. It is a very attractive looking 
fruit and somewhat resembles a golden delicious apple. The hosui variety harvest in California ends in mid-September, but thanks to storage is available in supermarkets through April or May.
Availability in stores will be at peak levels until around New Year’s. Asian pears tend to be a little pricy, but folks that love ’em will pay extra. This piece of fruit shown in the photo cost $1.21.
Around mid October consumers will also begin to see Asian pears from Japan arriving in stores.
NUTRITITIONAL FACTS
An Asian pear contains approximately 51 total calories. Carbohydrates account for 47 calories, fat contributes 2 calories and protein provides the remaining 2 calories. An Asian pear provides 3 percent of the daily value (DV) for total calories based on a diet of 2,000 calories per day.
The fruit has 13g of total carbohydrates. Simple sugars provide 9g of this total and dietary fiber accounts for the remaining 4g. An Asian pear has 4 percent of the DV for total carbohydrates and 18 percent of the DV for dietary fiber. An Asian pear doesn’t have any complex carbohydrates.
It contains 0.3g of fat, or less than 1 percent of the DV for fat. It doesn’t have any unsaturated fats, trans fats or cholesterol. An Asian pear also contains 0.6g of protein, which is slightly more than 1 percent of the DV for protein.
An Asian pear contains 8 percent of the DV for vitamin C, 7 percent of the DV for vitamin K and 2 percent of the DV for folate. It also has 4 percent of the DV for potassium, 4 percent of the DV for manganese, 3 percent of the DV for copper and 2 percent of the DV for magnesium. An Asian pear provides 1 percent or less of the DV for all other vitamins and minerals.
References
Is the Mexican truck border program falling apart? If so, that would be music 
to the ears of many, if not the majority in the trucking industry. On the other hand, produce shippers and others will not be too happy.
As reported here on August 23rd, a federal audit would be coming soon on the cross-border pilot program involving Mexican based trucking companies being allowed to operate in the USA.
The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration estimated that 46 Mexican carriers would participate in the three-year pilot program. The feds were planning to conduct 4,100 inspections during this time. However, only four Mexican trucking companies have participated, involving only four trucks and five drivers. A total of 89 inspections have been conducted by the FMCSA. Ouch!
The controverisal program has created some strange bedfellows in trucking. For example the Owner-Operators Independent Drivers Association (OOIDA) and the International Brotherhood of Teamsters seldom agree on much of anything. However, they’ve tightly held hands fighting this issue based around fears that a flood of Mexican trucks in the USA will drive down freight rates, many of which are not much different from 20 years ago. There also are concerns by owner operators over safety issues with Mexican equipment and lack of training among Mexican drivers.
Meanwhile produce shippers and others favoring Mexican trucking access to USA markets like the idea of greater competition leading to lower freight rates.
If the pilot program falls apart, with few Mexican trucking companies interested in participating, some produce shippers are concerned the Mexican government will re-implement tariffs of everything from apples to pears and potatoes – with some tariffs being as high as 20 percent.
The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), under which this pilot program is operating, requires the USA to permit cross-border trucking. However, legal challenges over the years by American carrier groups have prevented Mexican trucks from operating north of the border for over 10 years.
During the 2011-12 shipping season, truckers hauled nealy 35,000 truckload 
loads of Colorado potatoes to destinations thoughout the USDA. The Rocky Mountain state has started shipments for the 2012-13 season, although volume is very light.
Harvesting began in August with some farming operations, but others are just getting underway with digging potatoes. San Luis Valley potato acreage is up slightly this year and totals 55,100 acres. While this is certainly significant, it doesn’t compare to th 72,000 acres planted a decade ago. 70 years ago colo had 175 grower/shippers. now there are about 20. although fewer, they are much larger operations.
Some growers started harvesting in August, and others are beginning in early-to-mid September, depending on location and conditions.
The San Luis Valley produces 92% of Colorado’s potatoes, with the remaining spuds coming primarily from the Greeley area. Colorado is ranked in the top five potato producing areas in the USA, both in acres planted and production. Colorado is the number 2 fresh potato shipper in the country.
Location of the San Luis Valley is south, central CO. It is found southwest of Pueblo, CO, with the heart of its potato shipments coming from the Monte Vista and Center, CO area.
85% of the valley’s potatoes are russets, although it produces about 60 different variets of potatoes in all.
While loading opportunities for summer vegetables in the mid-west and 
northeast may have been hindered some due to dry, hot weather, loadings are expected to be brisk for this fall in Georgia. Normal vegetables shipments are expected from the southern part part of the state. Here’s a look at when primarily fall veggies shipments should be available.
These items should continue providing loads in good volume until the first frost hits, which normally comes in mid to late November. The exception is cabbage, which is more frost resistant.
Squash –mid September
Cucumbers — late September
Peppers — early October
Corn and beans — mid October
Cabbage — early November
As the fall Georgia vegetable shipments start declining in November, loading opportunities will be increasing in Florida. However, Florida volume will be light, compared to its most active time of the year, which is spring.
Good brokers are known for sticking up for the men and women behind the 
wheel of the big rigs delivering perishable fresh fruits and vegetables. That can mean rattling the cage of a shipper or receiver who are making a tough job even tougher for long haul truckers.
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Darrell Miller, Mark Martin, Robin Bicksler, Brent Schmit and Tristan Schmit.
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Brent Schmit is president of Eclipse Dist., Inc. located about an hour’s drive west of Chicago in Elburn, Il. One of the most common complaints he hears from drivers relate to the attitudes of people.
For example, Brent points out a driver arrives at shipping point in California to make a pick up. “The lady behind the desk tells the driver to hang on for a second. She is on the phone talking to her girl friend or someone else and won’t give the driver the bill of lading,” Brent states. “The driver is already loaded. Then the driver gets the bill of lading and it states he was loaded out an hour earlier.”
Then upon arriving at destination late, the receiver looks at the bill of lading and says the driver left the loading dock at shipping point earlier than the driver claims to have left. But in reality that is not true.
“A little more cooperation with the drivers would help,” laments Brent. “If you miss an appointment out there at shipping point, they will push you off until the next day, or sometimes give you a later appointment (that day), if you are lucky.”
Brent adds if the trucker arrives at shipping at a certain time, then has to wait five hours, what is the shipper’s responsibility? he asks. Additionally, if the receiver is claiming they needed the truck earlier, and if the truck had been loaded five hours earlier, the load would have been delivered when needed.
“I think the way the economy has been, it has affected business, and over all it has been a slower year,” Brent states. “I understand all of that, but they (shippers and receivers) put the pressure on everyone. The drivers aren’t happy, because they are not making as much. The customers aren’t happy because they are paying more for freight, and they aren’t selling as much.”
Eclipse, which arranges about 3,000 loads a year, handles a lot of less-than-truckload.
“There’s not a lot of people that want to handle the LTL,” Brent says. Everybody wants the one pick up, one drop. There are fewer headaches. It takes a certan finess to get and LTL done. Not only are you up all night with the driver, making sure he gets loaded, they you are trying to get deliveries arranged so the produce is taken off the truck.”
About 90 percent of Eclipse’s loads are with produce with the remainder being out bound loads from the Chicago area involving dry freight. The truck brokerage has produce loads from all over the country delivered to Chicago area receivers.
Brent and his staff take pride in the job accomplished with the challenging LTL deliveries. He notes Chicago is one of the largest distribution hubs in the USA.
“This is where we shop, where we eat, where we go to restaurants — everything. It is an enjoyment for us because we brought all this produce in from California and elswhere,” Brent concludes.
Summertime loads for produce haulers in New Jersey growers are declining, 
but there are still a limited amount of peaches being shipped. However, peach shipments will wrap up within days. There’s also limited handling of basil and mint are also finishing and will be halted by frost that typically occurs in mid-October.
The fall season shipments for spinach, escarole/endive, lettuces, turnips, radishes, and white and sweet potatoes are just getting started. There also are less amounts of vegetables ranging from cabbage to collards, kale, beets, Swiss chard, pickles, cucumbers, .radishes, butternut and acorn squash, and herbs such as parsley, dill, coriander, arugula and cilantro.
The top volume fresh-market vegetables in New Jersey are: tomatoes, sweet corn, peppers, cabbage, cucumbers, lettuce, spinach, eggplant, escarole, snap beans and asparagus. The primary fresh-market fruits are strawberries, blueberries, peaches, and apples. Jersey also is one of the top five states in producing cranberries for processing.
New Jersey also ships apples, but unlike the major Western apple shipping states, the Jersey fruit is shipped after harvest. without being stored time in controlled atmosphere conditions. New Jersey apple loadings began in late-August, with the Gala, MacIntosh, Jonathan and Courtland varieties, and are followed by Red Delicious, Empire, Jonagold and McCoun. Golden Delicious, Rome and Stayman Winesap start shipments in mid- to late September. Braeburn, Fuji and Granny Smith will start in early-October.
Wisconsin ranks No. 4 in the nation for potato shipments an estimated 22.32 
million hundredweight (cwt) of potatoes loaded last season. The Badger state growers harvested 62,000 acres of spuds. The harvest got under way in late August.
Crop quality concerns do exist across the state, and we have a long way to go to harvest conditions for storage,
If you are a produce hauler looking to transport Wisconsin potatoes for the 2012-13 season, there are some potential quality issues with which you should be aware. This is essential to help avoid potential claims and rejected loads.
Warm temperatures may have triggered heat necrosis (resulting in death of plant tissue due to disease, etc.). Hot soils also may result in black heart (where internal plant tissues blacken). Furthermore, insect damage [such as wire worm] has been seen that is also triggering defects. You also need to watch for late blight. Some early potato blight (a devastating disease of potatoes that caused of the Irish potato famine of the mid- 19th century) has been noted in early August, which is caused by cooler, wet weather.
Most Wisconsin potato shipments orginate from the central area of the state. From Antigo to the Stevens Point area and southward around Bancroft and Friesland.