Produce Update- Weather and Supply issues + Fair Trade Fruit

Weather is all in the news now, with major flooding taking out a wide swath of new plantings in the Salinas Valley last week – several areas received over a foot of rain.  Major crops affected will be lettuce, strawberries, spinach, radishes and any other small plant close to the ground.   Luckily some of our major suppliers weren’t hit that hard, but there is certainly a pinch in the supply chain, with associated price increases. 

On the fruit front, of course we’re going to push mango’s.  Our supply from Agrovida is done and we are into a brand new load, and our last one, from APROMAPLI.(The photo above is from our 2008 trip to visit APROMALPI)  Prices are aggressive – feel free to ask for a volume deal on any size. 

Capa pineapple continues to roar out the door – well priced and excellent quality. 

Our last load of Chilean FT blues is on the way, so we expect to be done with this deal in about 10 days. 

We can’t believe the overwhelming sales of our new passion fruit program, so we hope to have another pallet flying in over the weekend.

There is reasonable supply of most veg items, although full size ranges aren’t there, and some stuff is just ruined.  Canada doesn’t accept vegetables from the U.S. that have dirt on them, and anything growing close to the ground in coastal California is rain-splashed, and you can’t wash lettuce or spinach!  Broccoli prices continue to climb as the desert growers wind down, with little back-up from farther north.  There are some highlights:  Givens bunch carrots are beauties (as always), and there’s good supply of lettuce, chards, kale, collards.  Italian parsley supply is  tight. 

Our potato and onion supply continues to be strong, but the market is drying up quickly, and not reflecting imminent increases as some varieties gap.  One organic wholesaler in the U.S. defined the potato market as “scary”, with harvest dates being pushed back – still attached to the Mexico freeze. 

One of the few crops that was replanted quickly back 2 months ago was zucchini, as it grows quickly, so prices are dropping quickly, although that’s the only relief in that zuke/ cuke/ pepper/ tomato category.