Santa Maria Update
We are officially into June and peak season is coming next week! This has already been a great season and we are just now entering into the second half of it as Santa Maria comes into peak volume. Our day neutral varieties all look great right now with quality, size, flavor and firmness at their best thanks to healthy plants and mild weather.
We saw great demand coming into Memorial Day and look forward to more of the same as we work through graduation season and come into Father’s Day and the first day of summer this month. Consumers are still hungry for fresh strawberries as they plan their celebrations and we continue to drive demand with our quality and communication with our brand followers.
We saw a slight disruption in movement due to the unfortunate release by the FDA on an earlier food safety alert based on fruit from Mexico shipped more than a month ago. As you know, that fruit is not longer in the system, but we are optimistic as consumers move past the issue as they get the facts outlined from us and trade associations.
Industry Update
We just read the 2022 Fresh Trends Report published by The Packer every year and were very happy to see that strawberries moved into the #2 position right behind bananas as the most consumed fruit.
