May 30, 2018 Corn: Georgia is loading this week. The latest Tropical storm is not projected to have a significant impact on Georgia Corn. At this time volume and quality are projected to be excellent from Georgia. Market price will slightly drop as Georgia availability improves. VEGETABLES Asparagus: Michigan is going strong and quality has been excellent. Mexico and Peru are also up and running. Look for promotable volumes out of Michigan for the next couple of weeks before the transition to Mexico. Broccoli: Broccoli 14 s and crowns will both increase in market price for next week. Overall supply is tightening up and prices are increase daily. Promoting these items is not recommended over the next two weeks. Cabbage: Market prices are increasing. We are currently loading in Georgia. Cauliflower: Cauliflower is starting to slowly recover and prices are starting to come down. Overall supply will still be tight but will increase over the next week. Celery: Sleeved celery and celery hearts pricing will increase slightly for next week. Overall supply is tightening up. These item are not recommended to promote over the next week. russdaviswholesale.com Cucumbers: Mexico continues to ship the best quality and consistency. Georgia is now harvesting, however the quality falls short of western product. Markets are slightly increasing. Eggplant: We are loading in Nogales and California with good quality, markets are stable. Greens: Greens are currently loading in Georgia with steady supplies over the next few weeks. Green Beans: Georgia is harvesting, with the heavy rain they have experienced they have had to leave some fields unharvested creating short supplies and higher markets. Green Bell Peppers: California, Georgia, and Florida are shipping. Markets are declining slightly. California is shipping the best quality and where we are loading now. Green Onions: Green onion market price will remain steady for next week. Overall supply remains good. Now is the time to promote! 800.332.7104 crazyfreshproduce.com
Green/Red Leaf Lettuce: Green leaf and red leaf market price will decrease for next week. Supply is lighter than previous weeks as Salinas is experiencing cooler day and night time temperatures. In addition, mixed leaf lettuce has seen strong demand due to the issues surrounding the lack of demand for romaine. Green Top Radishes: Local Green Top Radishes will be shipping at the end of May 28 th week. a limited amount of storage crop ND and Idaho golds available. Red, Yellow, Orange Peppers: Canadian Hot House availability is anticipated to be limited in the upcoming week. Markets are slightly higher. Rhubarb: Local Rhubarb is available, quality is excellent! Time to promote. Hard Squash: Mexico and Georgia are shipping. Markets are stable; however, butternut remains high with tight availability. Iceberg Lettuce: Iceberg will decrease in market price for next week. Supply is lighter than previous weeks as Salinas is experiencing cooler day and night time temperatures. In addition, iceberg has seen very strong demand due to the issues surrounding the lack of demand for romaine. ONIONS: Onion demand remains light. New crop onions are shipping from New Mexico, Texas, California, and Georgia. We ve transitioned to new crop bulk onions from New Mexico earlier than normal in order to obtain the highest quality product available. The first onions from New Mexico are in our branches. Sweet: Vidalias are shipping heavily from Georgia. Heavy rains last week have taken a toll on of this year s yields with some growers losing 25%+ of their crop. Many don t expect to fill their controlled storage due to decreased tonnage. The product that is available has good quality but pricing has been tacking up. We are 2 weeks from Walla Wallas. POTATOES: Russets: The russet potato market experienced good demand over the Memorial Day weekend. With the increased demand, we saw increased pricing. Inventories are in good shape throughout the country. Reds: The red potato market remains steady across the regions. A rain/holiday market might be felt next week from Florida. Growers in the Red River Valley are looking to ship volume! Golds: Supplies of storage crop yellow potatoes continue are limited in all growing areas, as more growers have begun their new crop harvest. We re transitioning to new crop golds but still have Romaine Lettuce: Both romaine hearts and carton romaine market price will remain steady for next week. Salinas production is in full-swing. Now is the time to promote! Snap/Snow Peas: Domestic and Mexican production supplementing drops from other regions and improving. Light availability on both Snows and Snaps. Sweet Mini Peppers: Most Mexican growing regions will finish in about 1 week and anticipate a gap in supply at that time. We will use some Hot House product as Western supply diminishes this Spring/early Summer. Zucchini and Yellow Squash: Mexico, Georgia, and California are shipping, we are currently loading in Mexico and California. We are staying out of Georgia short term as excess rain is anticipated effect quality. Markets are slightly declining. VALUE ADDED DOLE: Iceberg: Good supply and quality. Romaine Lettuce: Great supply and good quality. Conventional Spinach: Good supply and okay quality. Conventional Spring Mix: Good supplies and quality. MANNS: Butternut Squash: Butternut Squash raw material supplies continues to be tight this week. We are trying to find raw material through alternate sources, but have been unsuccessful. The shortage is expected to last an extended period of time. Items with Butternut Squash will be shorted this again this week. Green Beans: Our Green Bean raw material delivery was delayed yesterday which left of shortage on production for Monday loading russdaviswholesale.com 800.332.7104 crazyfreshproduce.com 2
orders. We should be okay going forward. EARTHBOUND FARM: Organic Spinach: Latest update is Spinach numbers are looking better moving forward. Organic Arugula: Arugula will continue to be constrained for at least the next few days. Salinas regions are all behind as well. Market price will be up on conventional and holding steady on organic for next week. Blueberries: Blueberry supply will see some improvement but remains light industry-wide. Production in Central Mexico will be done by mid-june. Baja will continue to trend downward through June. California volumes are starting to pick up. Pacific Northwest looks to start around the middle of June. Organic volume in Baja is light and will be decreasing to very minimal volumes. California peak is done and will continue to decrease. PNW should be starting the last week of June. Market price will decrease for conventional and organic next week. FRUIT Apples: Import Braeburns and Import Galas are now available. We will be moving into New Zealand Honeycrisp in the next week. New Zealand Koru are now available and New Zealand Sweet Tango apples are finishing up for the season. Import Organic Braeburns, import Organic Crisp Pinks, and Import Lemonade Apples are available. Avocados: Markets a feeling a little bit of pressure due to Mexican fruit being late season. Peru is finally starting to hit the east and west coast, this will add a third country of origin to choose from which removes any one country from having too much power. There is still some hesitation with retailers who don t want Peruvian fruit due to either a bad experience with it in 2014 or that it s a relatively new country of origin to choose from which makes some folks nervous. They have learned since then and the programs and quality continue to get better each year. Blackberries: Conventional volumes have dropped off quickly in Central Mexico due to warmer weather and quality issues. Estimates have also come in lower as a result of weather in Watsonville. California volumes start to fill in during the June timeframe but are behind. Organic production also came in lower last week due to the weather. Central Mexico is decreasing and will be done by mid-june. The Santa Maria and Watsonville/ Cantaloupe/Honeydew: The import season has come to an end. Volumes are starting to pickup in the Southwest growing regions. Quality has been excellent so far. Cherries: California will be wrapping up in the next 7-12 days. Washington is slated to start picking reds and early Rainier s June 6-10 th. CITRUS: Navels: It appears that California will deplete their navel orange supply around Mid- June. Smaller sizes will run out first. Import navels should start just in time to eliminate any shortages on oranges. Import navels will be promotable any time from mid-july through mid-october. Market pricing on imports this season will be a little higher than last year. Clementines- We will be transitioned to import clementines this weekend. Out of the gate the availability will be tight and markets will be higher. Clementine s will be promotable Mid-June, July, August, September and October. Clementine s will be the variety for June through mid- August with Murcotts as the variety from mid-august through October. The peak promotable time will be the week before and after the 4 th of July, the week before Labor Day and mid-september through October. Organic Navels- will be done in the next week and then we will transition into Valencia s. Grapes: This week we seen a drastic turn in the grape market russdaviswholesale.com 800.332.7104 crazyfreshproduce.com 3
due to weather. Shippers are saying volume is off by 50% due to extreme heat. Fruit is not coloring up and green grapes are not getting the sugar that they should. Cotton Candy Grapes- Look for limited volumes on organic and conventional Cotton Candy grapes. Reach out to your RDW sales representative on these. Kiss Melons: Honeykiss and Goldenkiss are both available the other varities will be available in the coming weeks. Kiwi: We are running into a bit of a gap between our domestic and import crop. NZ Kiwi Fruit due the end of May!! Limes: We are starting to see better supplies of larger limes. Prices are starting to trend downward. Plums: Black and Red plums are just starting. This years black plum crop is expected to be down in overall volume due to older plants not producing. Pluots: Look for Pluots to be available in a couple weeks. Strawberries: There have been 3 weeks in a row with record setting production in California. Overall supply remains good. Santa Maria production will continue to increase each week. Peak volumes are expected in early June. Watsonville production has slowed down a little due to several weeks of cool weather. The week will start off with some warmer temps and peak volumes are expected in late June/early July. Organics remain in good supply with volumes primarily coming out of California. Now is the time to promote strawberries! Mangoes: The Guatemalan mangoes are finishing this week. Mexico is crossing all sizes of the Tommy Atkins variety and Honey/Atualfo mangoes, however, they are expecting lighter supplies of large fruit over the next couple of weeks. Quality looks excellent and we will see a little stronger prices on larger size mangoes over the next couple of weeks. Pears: Bosc Pears will be finishing up in the next week. We are still loading Washington Anjou s and Import Packham pears. Raspberries: Conventional volumes have not been this low since 2010 for the time of the year. Central Mexico will be done this week. Production in Oxnard should pick up this week. Watsonville is the region that has been and continues to be held back. Organic volumes are also coming in lower than expected. Baja volumes will be dropping. There is production in Watsonville/Salinas and Oxnard which will start increasing in June but have been pushed back due to the weather. Market prices will increase on conventional and decrease on organics for next week. STONE FRUIT: Peaches: Quality has been good. Volume has been somewhat limited due to the weather. Look for volume to pick up as we get into summer. Nectarines: Overall volume has been very good. Quality has been excellent. Promotable volumes will be available. TOMATOES: Roma: Quality remains very good from most shipping points. Markets are increasing and projected to go higher as Nogales is projected to finish shipping in early June. Grape/Cherry: Markets have stabilized. Most of the product we are loading from Florida. On the Vine: Markets are slightly increasing as the Canadian growing regions have had very few sunny days of late, slowing plant production. Time to promote with great quality. Beefsteak: Markets are slightly increasing as the Canadian growing regions have had very few sunny days of late, slowing plant production. Time to promote with great quality. WATERMELON: With all the rain Northern Florida and Georgia has received, harvesting has been pushed back to mid-june. We are currently loading Texas and Mexican fruit, but sizing is the big issue right now. Everything is on the large size, so smaller fruit is going to be hard to come by. Market is very strong and will continue due to demand exceeding supply. Mini Seedless: Market is steady and we are loading fruit from Mexico due to all the rain Florida has received. ORGANIC New Items: russdaviswholesale.com 800.332.7104 crazyfreshproduce.com 4
49347-18lb Organic Pluot Up Next: Organic Plums next week. Organic Cherries in a week or two Organic Blueberries: I think we are through the worst of it with blueberries. Weather is cooperating and there are plenty of organic blueberries around. We have Californian grown blueberries in 6oz and pints from Homegrown Organic Farms. away. Organic Sweet Onions: Organic Vidalias are in the house!!!! Just in time for perfect grilling weather! Organic Turmeric: We are back into Hawaiian turmeric. Organic Brussels Sprouts: Brussels sprouts are from Mexico and California. Organic Butter Lettuce: Production is back to normal on the butter lettuce. Organic Grapes: Organic Flame and Perlette grapes are rolling! Organic Grape Tomatoes: DelCabo grape tomatoes will be plentiful and promotable for the next month. Organic Green Top Red Carrots: These will be gapping until the fall. Organic Fingerlings: We are done for the season with organic fingerling potatoes. Next season starts in June in California. Organic Jalapeños: Jalapeños have tightened up because the fields were attacked by a pepper weevil. Organic Mangoes: We have tommy atkins mangoes from Mexico. Organic Melons: The Mexican season ended very early. We may be limited on cantaloupe, honeydew and mini watermelon until the new California crop gets rolling. Organic Pomegranates: Pomegranate arils from Chile are here again! Organic Potatoes: We get our last shot of local potatoes from Hugh s Gardens this week. We should have a few weeks worth of the local russets, variety pack and purple potatoes. Organic Stone Fruit: Nectarines are here and more California peaches will be here this weekend. Apricots will be about 5 weeks russdaviswholesale.com 800.332.7104 crazyfreshproduce.com 5