Cold Snap Hits the West Coast

Brrrrrrr…… even for us sun lovers here on the Coast.  Luckily we missed the bullet with this storm nailing Seattle to Portland with up to ½ a metre of snow in some areas.  Hurricane winds off the Oregon coast to 140 kmh and 10 meter waves.  A little bit of a shock for me, having been in Chile for 10 days in record-breaking heat!

Blueberry growers are sending 80% of the harvest to freezers – berries go soft when temps are running in the high 30’s.  One third of the blueberry crop and most of the raspberry crop in the major Chilean growing areas aren’t being picked – the fruit being covered in volcanic ash.  If it ain’t one thing, it’s another! 

This cold air has penetrated as far south as the Mexican coast, with overnight temperatures hovering around freezing in all growing areas – which is impacting growth, and supply considerably on all veg crops, although the worst is over and warmer temps will return  by the weekend. 

Several CA apple rooms have opened, so supply remains strong. 

Mexican avocado crop is getting tight – although it was a great crop year, other parts of the world not so much.  We expect to start our Peruvian program a month earlier this year – and we are now working with two coops that have both been certified Fair Trade over the last few months. 

Bananas in good supply, with interest increasing on the packaged clusters, which have a nice story about BOS on the back panel. 

Honeyblush Mango’s are hot news – by now you will have found them turning lovely hues of orange, pink and yellow, stringless and out of this world taste.  Our first Peruvian Kent’s will arrive in a couple of weeks.  There will be no price adjustments on mango’s this year – the crop is very small. 

Pears continue strong.  Our D’Anjou’s are superb, as always, from Kate and Randy Brooks. 

With a foot of snow on the ground, there aren’t going to be any leeks from Ralphs in Mount Vernon for a while! 

Nice to have Romanesco in stock – rarely grown in the southern areas because it doesn’t like heat – this is a great over-winter crop in central California. 

Our B.C. garlic is still plentiful – we will have rock solid supply 2 months longer than last year – growers have finally caught up to demand. 

Lower temperatures across most growing areas have crippled supply on some items and there is an across-the-board upward trend on pricing of most veg items. 

Green onion supply continues to be tight, even with thousands of acres in production in Mexicali, slow growth continues to keep prices high.