Santa Maria Update
The Fall strawberry season here continues to experience tight volume. The plants and fruit are healthy, but we are seeing lighter yields as we focus on packing best quality due to some previous weather disruptions.
We continue to experience foggy mornings with daytime temps hovering in the high 60’s and night time lows down in the 50’s. Days are definitely getting shorter which does have an impact on the growing cycle. As you can see from the photos below, there is still a lot of fruit coming on these plants with great sizing and color. However, you can also see we have quite a few runners that are requiring additional labor to keep in check.
Our QC team is diligent with inspections to ensure best quality in the box throughout the fall program.
Oxnard Update
We are enjoying our first fall season here in Oxnard. The fruit and the plant health does not disappoint! We are also splitting our time here between harvesting fall fields and planting for the 2023 season right around the corner (cover photo).
While volume is still tight as peak numbers approach, the fruit looks great and we are focused on maintaining high quality in every pack. Flavor is excellent and we look forward to supporting retail promotions throughout fall.
Weather is cooperating with mild day time highs in the low 70’s and night time lows in the upper 50’s.
Strawberry Industry Snapshot
The California Strawberry Commission released their most recent retail category trends report. The data shows for the last 52 weeks ending 9/11/22, strawberries ranked 5th in produce sales representing 5.2% of total sales, and the whole berry category coming in 2nd at 11.5% total sales. Unit sales come in at a lower percentage than dollar sales with strawberries at 3.6% and total berries at 7.7%. However, both number are up compared to the previous 52 week period.
