MARKET REPORT - AUG. 8TH, 2015

WE ARE MOVING!

A quick little report for you today as we all scramble to disassemble our desks and piles of paperwork as we get ready for our big move – now less than 48 hours away!  After months and months of planning, we are down to the crunch, and have done a lot of juggling to make sure we can pull this off without any disruption in service or supply.The flavour for local is certainly apparent as we see huge demand for early apples zoom up now that we are into mainstream varieties like sweet and crunchy Sunrise.  The great blueberry run continues, and perhaps even more appetizing with very substantial increases in strawberry pricing (both organic and conventional.) We expect local cherry season to be done in 2 weeks, with Sproule’s being the last farmer standing and their final harvests are this week.  Local fruit supplies across the board are selling through very well with nectarines, peaches and melons at the top of the list.  Cooler nights in the Interior this week are going to start slowing production down and we expect we will continue to draw melons from the States through the season.Orange pricing continues to increase on Fancy fruit as growers hunt down shiny Valencias in sparse orchards.  As mentioned, strawberry production has been halved this week as plants have now peaked and the main season winds down in Watsonville.  With a 9 month harvest season there is a point where plants just run out of oomph to continue to produce large yields.Of course the lemon market continues to be interesting to say the least – we’ve added new sources to our program simply to get more fruit – that includes Sunkist, one of the original citrus coops in California.  The demand continues to be strong even at these high price levels, which are mirrored in the conventional market as well.First Washington early pears are about to arrive, which leads us to believe that we’re only about 10 days out on the first Star Krimson and Red Bartlett’s from our Interior growers.Currency situations aren’t helping with the Canadian dollar continue to take on third-world characteristics, with a further drop of 2% over the past week alone.Weather hasn’t been a factor in any growing areas for the last few days so no tragedies or surprises to report.  Local greens are, for the most part, in good shape.  We’re still in a bit of a supply crunch industry-wide on organic primary field crops out of Salinas – broccoli, cauli and celery continue to be demanding markets with prices continuing to uptrend.Everything else is all good!