Posts Tagged “Georgia”
Strawberry shipments from the Plant City, FL area have been underway for more than a month, but only in very light volume. This is changing as available loads will show significant increases by December 10, and be in big volume around December 15-20. Central Florida also has very light volume with cherry, grape, roma and green tomatoes. The area also is shipping variety of vegetables. However, this overall is seasonally a very light volume period for Florida. Expect multiple pickups to involved with most loads.
You may even have to fill out the trailer from those Florida pick ups with a few pallets of cabbage, greens or broccoli from Southern Georgia. In fact, the whole Eastern seaboard extending into the Northeast and New England doesn’t hold a lot of volume, but sometimes something is better than nothing.
In eastern growing areas of North Carolina, the biggest volume is with sweet potatoes, not necessarily known for paying the best freight rates…..In upstate New York, Orange County is shipping storage onions, while central and western areas are loading cabbage. New York apples were hit pretty hard by freezing weather earlier this year, especially from western and central shipping points. Even the Hudson Valley did not escape the freeze, although it came out better than the rest of the state.
In northern Maine, Aroostoock County is shipping around 150 truck loads of potatoes a week.
Maine potatoes – grossing about $1700 to New York City.
North Carolina sweet potatoes – about $1500 to Atlanta.
Florida vegetables and strawberries – about $2600 to Boston.
If you haul produce in the fall out of Florida, expect weather related small gaps in the early part of the sweet corn season as well as with small harvest and loading delays with green beans, bell peppers, cucumbers and squash.
Volume for early bean shipments also is expected to be off and on. However, loads are not expected to be until early December.
On some vegetables, including bell peppers, cucumbers and squash, be on the look out for quality issues resutling from frequent rains durng the growing season.
Sporadic harvesting and shipments could make things interesting for the active shipping period when deliveries for the Thanksgiving holidays could get a little dicey. I’m not saying this will happen, but just be aware of the potential problems.
Florida pepper shipments should be in decent volume by the end of October.
If Georgia experiences favorable November weather, shipments there could continue through Thanksgiving.
However, southern Georgia fall veggies are having some problems with whiteflies. For example, some yellow squash is looking more like albino (white) squash as the pests suck out the nutrients. I’d be sure and let my receiver(s) know what you are preparing to load rather than find out if they’ll accept it upon arrival!
Besides squash, the pests also are affecting cucumbers, bell peppers and grean beans. Sweet corn apparently isn’t being significantly hit. Lower yields will mean less product for hauling. Color of the fall vegetables also is being affected. Unfortunately, color and general appearance often receive as much emphasis as the quality of product in this cosmetic world.
South Georgia vegetables – grossing about $2200 to New York City.
On any given day there will 100 or more trucks either loading or unloading on the Atlanta State Farmers Market. Most of those loads involve fresh fruits and vegetables.
The original market was actually located on Atlanta’s West End district in 1939 before moving to its current location in 1959. It has since expanded into a 150-acre compound housing everything from cold storages, docks, offices for wholesalers, brokers and others, as well having a resturant, police force and other agencies and facilities.
The Atlanta produce market is owned by the state of Georgia and operated by the Georgia Department of Agriculture Markets Division. It is located a middle-class industrial district about 10 miles south of downtown Atlanta and only a couple of miles from Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport.
Rail lines crisscross the property. The complex is just off the east side of Interstate 75 and only a couple of blocks south of Interstates 85 and 20, providing easy access from the to the Southeastern USA.
The market’s Oak Room restaurant has a large, varied menu with good food, which of course serves produce fresh from the marketplace.
Georgia has about a dozen state farmers scattered around the state, which are home to more than 150 companies employing 3,700 farmers, packers, retailers, receivers, and staff with an estimated payroll over $75 million. The Atlanta market is home to 85 percent of those businesses. In 2009, those markets brought in receipts totaling almost $1 billion. The Atlanta market brought in more than half that amount and operates in the black with revenues of almost $6 million last year.
Georgia ranks number on in USA pecan pecan shipments and the loads should just keep increasing in coming years. Georgia 
growers have enough new trees in the ground to increase production by about 50 percent between now and 2020.
The state shipped 125 million pounds last season. This year it was thought volume would be around 70-75 million , but that figure has now been revised to least 100 million pounds. Enough new pecan trees are now planted in Georgia to increase loads to 150 million pounds by 2020.
Shipments this year have started 10 days to two weeks earlier thanks to a mild winter, followed by a mild summer.
In May, Georgia pecans were added to the American Heart Association list of certified heart-healthy foods, earning the right to display the AHA Heart-Check mark
Record or near record shipments of peanuts, almonds, walnuts, and pistachios 
are predicted by the USDA in the coming months. In fact, most types of nuts are expected to be plentiful for the fall, holiday and winter season, coming off of the 2012 harvest.
For example, record shipments of peanuts are predicted for the top four producing states of Georgia, Florida, Alabama and number four Texas. Georgia has nearly 60 percent more planted acrerage than a year ago and expects to ship over 2.8 million pounds of peanuts. The state accounts for nearly 50 percent of the nation’s peanut shipments.
Total U.S. peanut shipments are projected to be 5.9 million pounds in 2012, up from 3.6 million in 2011.
Almond loadings are expected to be up three percent from last year, totalling 2.1 billion meat pounds for 2012 on some 780,000 acres. California ships about 80 percent of the world’s almonds, with the leaders being Georgia, Texas and New Mexico. Total USA loadings in 2011 amounted to about 270 million pounds, and this is seen as increasing this year.
California also accounts for about 99 percent of the walnut volume in the United States, up two percent from a year ago. It’s not a record, but is close.
Record pistachio shipments are forecast out of California, Arizona, New Mexico and Nevada totalling 550 to 575 million pounds.
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.
Produce loadings have seasonally moved northward, some by as much as 
three weeks earlier than normal.
A case in point is New Jersey where southern area vegetables have been ahead of schedule for weeks. Now it is peach loadings taking center stage. Jersey peaches started the third week of June, but do not normally get underway until around July 10th. The Garden State ranks fourth nationally in peach volume behind California, South Carolina and Georgia….New Jersey also is a leading shipper of blueberries, which are now moving in volume.
Watermelon loadings are available from the Charleston-Beaufort area of South Carolina…..North Carolina continues to ship sweet potatoes.
Florida has entered its deadest part of the year as far as produce is concerned, while the state of Georgia isn’t a whole lot better. Weather problems really hurt Georgia vegetable, blueberry and watermelon shipments this year. Vidalia onion volume has dwindled and the latter end of the Georgia peach shipping season is lighter than normal.
New Jersey blueberries – grossing about $2600 to Orlando.
North Carolina sweet potatoes – about $1750 to Philadelphia.
Refrigerated equipment is in tight supply in a number of areas around the 
country, but it could be much worse. Less than bumper sized crops in several areas is easing some of the pressure for trucks. California’s San Joaquin Valley stone fruit crop is down from a year ago. Central and southern Georgia fruits and vegetables were hit hard by inclement weather during the spring. Watermelons in Texas and some parts of the east coast were also victims of bad weather.
The new apple season will be launched in only a few weeks and crops were decimated in Michigan, Ontario and parts of New York state.
Thus, when folks complain about California rates hitting $6,000 to the Mid-west and $9,000 to the East Coast, with a little more favorable weather conditions in various parts of the USA and Canada, demand for refrigerated equipment could have been worse – resulting in even higher rates on produce hauls. Still, there comes a point when rates reach a certain point, that retail prices for fruits and vegetables rise, and at a certain there is consumer resistance to high the costs.
Whether talking availablity of equipment, volume of fruits and vegetables, as well as the quality of the product — and let’s not forget the availability of professional drivers – many factors can result in the final equasion for supply and demand….If and when this economy ever turns around, produce shipments will be receiving a lot more competition as many drivers will choose to haul other things, which is not as demanding and risky as loads of fresh produce.
Southern Californa citrus and fruit – grossing about $9000 to Boston, sometimes more.
Salinas Valley vegetables and berries – about $6200 to Chicago.
Produce shipments on the East Coast are a mixed bag this year and some areas 
are shipping more normal volumes, with other areas doing less.
Shipments of New Jersey blueberries, along with vegetables continue to be loaded in normal volumes. Jersey peach loadings are ramping up and should be in peak volume soon, continuing through July.
Further south in the Mid-Altantic area, sometimes referred to as the Eastern Shore, Delaware, Maryland and Virginia are shipping a variety of vegetables, with more coming into play as we enter July. This area, however, has struggled over the years, as it tries to provide shipments during a gap between states to the south of it, and New Jersey to the north, which in theory is supposed to begin shipments when Delaware, Maryland and Virgina are finishing.
However, it’s a gamble every year and if the southern states are late coming in, or Jersey is early, the the Mid-Atlantic states tend to face poor markets, and fewer loading opportunities for produce haulers. As a result this area does not have as many shippers as it used to.
Meanwhile, there are fewer Georgia vegetables, Vidalia onions and peaches this year due to weather factors, although the vegetables were easily hit the hardest of the three.
Vidalia, Georgia onions – grossing about $3200 to New York City.
New Jersey blueberries – about $1800 to Boston.
Remember when Wal-Mart introduced produce departments to their stores a 
number of years ago. They did an excellent job! You can thank a guy named Bruce Peterson for that. Anyway, Bruce left the huge chain a while back and Wal-Mart produce departments, at least in many stores, have went down hill. My local Wal-Mart often has substandard produce, and definately not enough staff to keep the shelves stocked properly, not only in produce, but in the grocery and other departments as well.
Anyway, I just bought my first peaches of the season at my local Wal-Mart. I purposely bought peaches from California, as well as – honestly I’m not sure where the 2nd peaches are from. The shipper is based in South Carolina, but he may be selling some peaches for growers in Georgia. The label didn’t say in which state the peaches were grown.
I would give the California peaches a “C” and the Eastern peaches a “C-minus.” The West Coast peaches had excess juice, which really tasted more like water. The East Coast peaches were seriously lacking in juice. Peaches from both California and South Carolina, or is it Georgia, were dry.
Looking at the photograph I took of a peach from California (on the right) and the East Coast peach (on the left), both have nice color, although both are lacking in size. Just goes to show, as Bo Diddley once sang, you can’t always judge a book by looking at the cover. Hopefully, both coasts will have better peach quality in coming days.