Buyer's Notes - April 23, 2021
Buyer’s Notes - April 23, 2021
Stefan Misse, Carter Selmes-Blythe, Brody Irvine, Jon Maheswaran - Discovery Organics
From Stefan:
Apples – BC Galas are now all packed and in the box. We are seeing the first USA imports on bags now with what suppliers down south are noting “peaking demand on Galas” All other apples from BC still in good supply.
Berries - all berries are still showing limited supplies. USA blues should start in a couple weeks which will relieve the shortage there. Rain in the forecast for Watsonville this weekend may lead to a Mother Day shortage on berries. Book your fruit early!
Grapefruit - steady supplies with 48ct hitting good volumes. Mexico crop has 1-2 more weeks of harvest left.
Oranges - nothing much new to report. Late season crop is sizing large which is typical. That means 88s and smaller are hard to find and bagged fruit becomes more scarce (no one packs a 56ct into a bag). Valencias will ship from Mexico for another couple weeks. For those wanting smaller sized from and affordable bag oranges this is the direction to go.
Lemons - this week we really saw the FOB prices jump on lemons and this should continue onwards and upwards into the summer. At some point Mexican lemons should kick back in to help relieve the shortages and price pressure. Best carton prices on lemons right now is the large 50/63ct FCY fruit.
Limes - steady and pricey supplies. Mexico has 3 primary production areas, Veracruz on the East Coast, Michoacan on the West Coast, and Jalisco in the middle. When any of those three areas has an issue (from roadblocks and general chaos, to hurricanes, to frost) supply tightens and prices soar on fancy fruit especially.
Mangos – season is steaming along now with sales brisk and turns quick. Crespo is reporting generally dry conditions for a while now which is limiting the ability of fruit to size up. Rainy season returns to Mexico in a few weeks.
Pineapples - Mexican fruit should go through June but high demand will continue to creep the pricing up.
From Carter:
Asparagus – limited supply of purple asparagus arriving Sunday from Devine. Good supply of grass continues for next week with Washington starting soon.
Beans – limited supply arrived today. Still slow production – waiting for Rico to amp up. Transitioning between growing areas is creating big gaps and high markets.
Eggplant - Good quality and availability on all sizes expected to continue through mid-May as the Sinaloa crop finishes. Listada arriving to Vancouver on Sunday.
Cucumbers – FT option in house on slicers from Divine Flavor. Juice fans we have a fresh arrival of Juice Cucumbers arriving Sunday.
LE Cucumbers – new arrival from OriginO today. Light volume for import arriving Thursday.
Garlic – purple garlic hopefully 2nd week of May from Del Cabo.
Hot Peppers – Cherry Bomb back in Sunday / Serrano back in Wednesday / Habanero coming in HOT Thursday.
Onions – new crop MX red onions arriving April 29th from Devine.
Peppers – BC HH Peppers in full swing from OriginO… bell peppers are crisp, sweet, healthy, versatile, and it’s perfection by Mother Nature.
Tomatoes Heirlooms – FT Heirlooms from Wholesum are looking real good.
Mushrooms – all lower mainland farms battling poundage for whites. Shorts are imminent.
Grape Tomatoes – FT Grape tomatoes from Divine Flavor just arrived. Support FairTrade!
Roma Tomatoes – FT Roma from Wholesum in house. FT stickered fruit.. Ready to eat
Zucchini – Wholesum Fair Trade zukes in house. Next arrival to Vancouver is Thursday. Supplies have tightened up significantly on zucchini though so watch pricing.
Squash – don’t forget we have Delicata back! AND ITS FAIR TRADE :)
From Brody:
Broccoli – nothing new to report really. Things have been steady and promotable for a long while now. Still price disparity between California coast and supply out of a large grower in San Rio Colorado in Sonora being sold in a variety of brands.
Cauliflower – continued supply and quality issues… which is very common this time of year. Aphid pressure is quite established in the coastal growing regions so even though they are new plantings from the winter, the bugs are already up and hungry. Growers are doing their best with organic growing methods to supply good quality, but there are challenges. Accordingly we are seeing more 9CT and 20CT sizes available.
Romanesco – as a nice alternative to cauliflower we will see some of the beautiful fractal pattern Romanesco arrive to us mid-week.
Celery – take advantage of this pricing while you can. My crystal ball is telling me that in the next 5-10 days we’ll see some significant price increases.
Peas – serious time to party with Californian grown peas right now. Quality is remarkable and availability is strong.
Green Onions – some of our growers are coming into issues with thrips and cutting our orders back so supply may be limited for a bit. Thrips is a type of pest that does like munching on onions (alliums) and it tends to turn the green stalks white, and so they don’t look great. Not as big of an issue with storage onions (yellow/red) but for green onions it’s a no go.
From Jon:
Cantaloupes - seem to be in good supply finally, now that the sun is going back into hiding, at least on the South Coast. We have a tonne coming!
BINS OF WATERMELON - looks like a great start from Hermosillo and Imperial. Expect the market to tighten by June when those areas wind up and we hit shortages due to water cutbacks in the San Joaquin.
Mini Watermelons - these have been a tough one to land, as there seems like everyone’s after them/not enough supply yet. Vendors are saying they’ll be good to go next week.
Kiwis - Wild River winding down on these. We have another pallet of bags/some bulk coming in mid-week and then will switch to NZ fruit.
Yams - good supply as we get late into the storage season.