Overall Update
Today is the last day of March! We are very hopeful that April will be more kind to us and bring on some real Spring weather. We continue to see the entire state tracking a month behind our normal production curve. Weather looks to be improving over the next 10 days with sunny skies, but we still anticipate cooler overall temps in the short term.
Oxnard: The market is definitely tight for the rest of the Easter pull, but we do see our strawberry volume picking up here each week for the next four weeks. Quality going into the pack is excellent with great flavor as the fruit ripens up. Our QC teams are following the harvest closely as crews cull damaged fruit from all the adverse weather we have received. We expect to continue to cull damaged berries for at least the next couple of weeks working through all the issues caused by so much rain, hail and wind we have gone through. As the weather warms over the next couple of weeks, we hope to get on a daily harvest rotation as these plants finally get a chance to kick into Spring.
Coachella: This region has received less rain due to location, but also seeing cooler temperatures which has kept volume tight here as well. The team here looks forward to continued increases in volume each week as the weather warms up. We expect to be pulling fruit from this region for several more weeks since the quality and flavor are excellent and the mild weather remains favorable.
Santa Maria: Continuing with the ‘month behind normal’ theme, we are still way behind here in Santa Maria. The plants look really good and we should start scratching some fields here in the next week or so, but don’t expect to see any measurable numbers until closer to the end of April. It has been cold here on the west side of town, but we do see warmer days ahead in the forecast, so will let you know how things progress over the next couple of weeks.
Visit us at booth #126
We look forward to Viva Fresh !