Santa Maria strawberries coming into peak supply

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The supply of strawberries from California is moving steadily. “The supply overall is less than normal,” says John Wilkinson of Blazer Wilkinson Gee, LLC., noting there are three crops going at the moment.

© Blazer Wilkinson

Picking is steady of the fall crop in Salinas–a crop that will continue to see harvest through October, possibly longer. “Then harvest started on the summer crop in Santa Maria maybe a month or so ago and they’ve been going pretty well,” says Wilkinson, adding that the Santa Maria summer crop is expected to peak over the next three weeks. “Which is fine because we can take the volume. The industry is not overburdened with volume right now. The total of the two is still very much in the range of 5-6 million conventional trays a week which the industry can stand,” he says.

Picking has also begun in a small way in Baja California. “It’s very early, though they’ve been trying to get earlier every year,” says Wilkinson.

© Blazer Wilkinson

Factors affecting demand
The challenge at the moment though is that retail pricing on strawberries is high because the market was really strong and that is leaving demand fair. Demand could also possibly still be influenced by the summer’s Cyclospora outbreak in lettuce–an event that softened general produce sales throughout the summer. In turn though, those high retail prices are what have brought the market down over the last two weeks.

“Generally, things are still moving well. It’s a tough year because it’s a slightly lighter crop and we have higher costs on things like fuel and paper–those are two big expenditures for us, along with labor,” says Wilkinson. “Looking ahead, with volume increasing, pricing will probably stay the same for the next three weeks or so and then it could start to creep up.”

© Blazer Wilkinson

Further out, strawberry planting is also underway in Florida and it’s expected that this region will have berries by Thanksgiving or possibly slightly earlier.

For more information:
John Wilkinson
Blazer Wilkinson Gee, LLC
Tel: +1 (800) 676-1577
https://bwgberries.com/

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Source: The Plantations International Agroforestry Group of Companies