MARKET REPORT - APR. 12TH, 2017 - JUST A QUICK UPDATE HERE

On our Peru Relief Fund.  We’re hoping to send as much $ to Peru as possible on Thursday, so they have the money right after Easter.  If you have made a pledge, can you do your best to make that happen today or tomorrow morning please?   Thanks!Very few changes after Friday’s market report.  With most veg production moving to the general Salinas area, growers would dearly love to have a spring!  Over the last 6 weeks the daytime highs have averaged 17C – with only 4 days over 25C.  They are, to the one, crying the blues, especially after a 3 day rain event ending last night – but not much rain in the forecast for the next week, nor any heat to speak of.Here’s the news that’s fit to print.Avocado prices continue to soar with Mexico fighting to maintain enough volume for the next 8 – 10 weeks before they can start shipping new crop fruit.  Sorry, we’re just having to pass along the pain.  The actual fruit prices have now more than doubled since October.  Growers there are totally in the driver’s seat, and that’s not in an old pickup – that’s in a new SUV I think. Speaking of avocados, we are having a hard time keeping our Rebel Avocado bags in stock – now the star of our Rebel program.  Consumers are seeing great value on this deal – if you aren’t putting this front and center with your bulk avo display, give it a try – not a lot of investment to see if you can capture more business, and we haven’t heard any complaints that it steals sales from #1 fruit.Apples – Just a heads up, we are just about out (as in this is the last week) for BC Fuji, Red, Gold, Spartan and a few others – at least 15 line items depleted.  We’ll pretty well be all Washington apples until our first Chilean arrive in a month or so.Lemons – Rain = no harvest.  No harvest means less fruit in the system.  Less fruit means a sellers’ market.  Sellers’ market = higher prices.  Sorry, some vendors have pushed pricing 15% or so.  Maybe a trend?Mangos – Although not reflected on today’s lists, our incoming fruit on the weekend will be down a couple of dollars.  Just passing that along in case you want to plan more space, or definitely stock yellow and green at the same time – with higher sales attached to a lower retail.Asparagus – Harvests were fairly lean the last few days and with Mexico winding down this week in Caborca, supply has tightened – prices up 15% give or take.Beets – our BC deal is about done – maybe enough to skinny through the week.  Bunch prices are about to soar.  This is the time of year when desert growers have pulled everything left in the ground and sold them, and coastal growers cannot keep up with orders for bunch, much less bulk.  Knowing these we contracted quite a bit of land out so we could have nice fresh stock through the spring at reasonable prices.  Sometimes growers buy a LOT of seed (it’s cheaper that way), and then their field managers just go ahead and plant it all without asking, even if it’s 2 acres worth (double what we asked for.)  So do not fear, we will have a huge supply for the next 3 months, and at very reasonable pricing.Cauliflower – one of the universal buying rules is to buy heavy on a risking market.  Instinctively that just doesn’t make sense when you see knock-your-socks-off pricing with the expectation that they will drop.  Well, wrong-o, we’re out of what seemed really expensive, and the next incoming is going to land 15% higher than last week.  A distinctively sellers’ market!Celery – yet another head’s up – and I foretold this a few weeks ago – prices at farmgate have doubled in 3 weeks as desert supply dwindles.  But out on the coast – there is no way that there is going to be much celery for many, many weeks.  It takes 110 days to grow a crop of celery, and that’s in the summer.  With weather balancing between winter and spring so far along the California Coast, there are some distinct trouble patches ahead in this market and prices could potentially soar to “cauliflower levels.”  We will be able to buffer that expected price jump with our Agrofresco program.  Maybe this isn’t really news-worthy, but if you are a “juice” customer and this item is on your list of ingredients, then it certainly is.Something Good – no, it’s a brand silly.  We’ve been faithfully selling John Givens stuff for at least a decade if not forever – Something Good boxes.   But we’ve listed it as “John Givens” in the past.  You will remember his amazing fennel, superb dandelion – definitely one of those growers who looks in every box!  Being in much warmer and sunnier Oxnard, expect to see that brand on our lists for awhileThat’s it for today.