Produce Update-January 2 2015
Despite the now 5th day of frost in the southern desert growing areas, and very cold daytime temperatures, we are continuing to get supply of most items. We likely won’t see substantial price increasing until the middle of the week because product incoming this weekend was bought before the last few nights ended up being much colder than predicted.Lettuce, cilantro, chard and spinach have suffered the most, although lettuce and chard will take several weeks to recover – their roots are just fine, so should re-grow fairly quickly. The harvest window on other commodities is very short, with crews having to wait until 10 AM before harvest, and so a short working day. With one more night of frost forecast for tonight, and the coldest night (-3C) hitting most growers from El Centro east to Yuma last night, the damage is still being estimated. Many items you receive from US Shippers is grown in Mexico as well, and exactly the same weather has hit the areas a few miles south in Mexicali and San Luis. We are so lucky to have solid supply on celery and lettuce from much farther south (29C yesterday for a high) so expect continuing good supply of lettuce and celery, and starting mid-week broccoli and black kale.A friend texted me a picture at midnight on New Years Eve of his kids having a snowball fight in Mexicali – the first snow they have had since the 1950’s. Temperatures also plunged on the coast of California – wilting roses for the Rose Bowl parade in Pasadena, and slowing down production in Oxnard, north of L.A. as well, with temperatures dropping below freezing in some valleys. Several growers are telling us they won’t have a full damage report until Monday.Why is this happening? This is the 3th major freeze in the last 5 years. The Jet Stream that moves weather around the world has changed significantly in the last 6 years – it’s the constantly shifting ‘border’ between dry Arctic air, and warmer air to the south, but because the Arctic Ocean is now virtually ice-free for several months, it is now creating its own weather and storms, like any other ocean, and that is impacting the flow of air around the top of the globe in a major way. These Arctic blasts usually miss BC and flow from the Prairies south the US Midwest, but in recent years, including this one, the cold air is flowing south down the ocean off our coast and hitting coastal California and Mexico. All is not bad news – every other commodity, besides 5 or 10 greens items are in good supply, and prices won’t be going up on those. That being said, every salad mix order is being pro-rated as well on incoming trucks for the next few days. Citrus is an excellent category now with a wide range of the regular winter specialty fruits. Roots are in good shape. Best news for us is that our new banana ripening rooms are now up and running and we should be back in solid supply by Sunday. We apologize again for this – we hate it when we disappoint on a major commodity. We are overstocked on smaller avocados, which we’re shipping in lugs, so this remaining inventory is being sold off at massive discounts. The 4kg sizing is on the list, because we will start selling those early in the week when we’ve moved through the lugs – take advantage! Please! No issues on apples, pears and most fruit. Our LA receiver nixed all incoming strawberries this morning because of quality issues out of Oxnard, so will expect a Tues/Wed gap on those, but the rest of the berry linen-up is stunning.