Crop Report: July 26th, 2021
Tomatoes
Conventionals & San Marzano Style – Crop continues to look good. Harvest to begin this week.
Organics – Harvest and production completed at the Woodland canning facility at 6am on Monday, June 26th. In review, our organic tomato crop picked out at 73% of expectations with a disappointing yield that affected our peeling percentage and total cases produced this summer. There were two cycles of extreme heat, which occurred just as our harvest got underway, contributing to mixed field maturity and a significant hardship to our daily canning throughput. We still have an opportunity to correct some of this 27% organic tomato pack shortfall with our Liberty facility in the southern region of CA, but we are needing patience and understanding from our valued customers as we wade through what remains of our allocated organic field tons. Please stay tuned.
Peaches
Organics – Harvest continues and is going well. All normal cultural practices continue in all orchards.
Conventionals – Harvest continues. Extra early varieties in the north will be finished this week. Early varieties continue to be picked. Cooler weather and overcast from the Dixie Fire north of Oroville is slowing down the ripening process. This will allow more time for fruit to size. All normal cultural practices & crop protection continue.
Pears
River and Linden District growers continue to harvest fruit. Growers are starting their second round of picking where they strip orchards of remaining fruit that was left during the first round to size. Mendocino and Lake District growers continue to irrigate and maintain all normal cultural practices. Harvest in these districts is still a few weeks out.
Grapes
The extreme heat has taken a toll on the crop. There is raisining present in all vineyards. Harvest is expected to begin later this week. All normal cultural practices and crop protections continue including irrigation.
Cherries
We are about 84% complete with harvest. The remaining orchards left are the higher elevation locations in Washington. We should be completed with harvest mid-August.
Apricots
Harvest has finished. Fruit quality was clean throughout harvest. Sizing issues were apparent but growers helped to sort out small fruit. Based on trends next season will be a smaller crop however growers will do what they can to mitigate if possible.
Mango
Harvest was late but overall quality is good and ample. Plants continue to face impacts from COVID as they struggled with labor. We continue to face increased costs due to labor and raw material cost increases.
Pineapple
COVID continues to hinder the workforce as labor typically comes into these countries from other Southeast Asian countries. Because of this, plants are operating at 65% capacity and are not running as efficient. Crop looks ample & positive for this summer’s pack as well as the winter crop.
Oysters
This year’s crop was good. Overall size was slightly smaller than average. We continue to face increased costs due to supply chain and COVID regulations.
Peaches
Peaches in Greece were effected by a large frost event that occurred during bloom this spring. This has effected the overall volume for this harvest. Pricing is still not determined. Chinese peaches suffered fruit loss as well due to weather. Fruit cost has gone up over 20%.