Yuma Transition, Lettuce, and Berries

Fri, February 17th, 2023

Lettuce:

The western vegetable industry continues to experience a series of challenges due to extreme weather and heavy disease pressure resulting in lower yields, short supply, and poor quality. In some extreme cases, growers are experiencing complete losses, due to the INSV virus and weather-related issues on iceberg lettuce, romaine, romaine hearts, and all leaf items. This has significantly impacted markets in terms of price and quality, and shippers having to deviate from the normal quality we are accustomed to. Expect lighter supplies to continue into early to mid-december, possibly into January.

Strawberries:

We are experiencing rain in the main strawberry growing regions of Santa Maria and Oxnard which will last through Wednesday. Crews were in the fields harvesting Saturday and again on Sunday in an attempt to get some pre rain fruit in the barns to start the week. Here is what we can expect this week:

Available quantities will be extremely limited due to the current weather event.
The rain is being accompanied by colder temperatures with nighttime lows expected to reach the low 30s and daytime highs reaching only 65 degrees or lower.
The harvest and fill rate situation will be very fluid as growers will have to monitor yield progress hourly this morning.
We expect fill rates and pushes to orders to try and accommodate these limited supplies.

Blueberries:

There are currently good volumes of fruit being imported from Central Mexico, Peru while some Chilean arrivals are beginning to show up as well.

Blackberries:

Most product being offered out is coming from Central Mexico loading both FOB Texas and transferred to the West and East coast consolidation centers.

Raspberries:

Steady but declining numbers are coming out of Baja California. Central Mexico should stay steady although some crop quality has caused shippers to go to processers in the short term.

Transition from Yuma to Salinas:
We experience increased quality issues and concerns during transition because of general weather conditions in the growing area. As we inch towards the end of one crop, we see a waning in one growing region and increasing of the other growing region.

Overall, the quality is just not as hardy and is more fragile during the beginning stages of another crop (new crop has the tendency to be more fragile).

As a result, supply is tight, because the quality product is not as available. During transition growers will do a final harvest, and then pack everything up to move onto the next growing region.

If you have any additional question, please reach out to your sales representative.

Thank you,

Ole Tyme Produce