Market Report July 25th, 2022

This Weeks Market Updates

A heat wave is hitting the central valley this week causing production delays and lower production yields. The green bell peppers market is slowly moving in the right direction, and we expect light volume for at least another week.

Bananas are expected to remain short through the second week of August. Pineapple volume is down as part of the natural harvest cycle; large fruit is lighter in volume; we do not expect shortages currently and are evaluating with our partners daily.

HOT PEPPERS – ESCALATED
In the east, we continue to see light volume on Jalapeno and noticeably short on all other varieties. We hope to see this improve over the next ten days. In the far west, we are seeing improving numbers cross through Otay on all varieties and should see better volume weekly out of the Central coast as well.

MUSHROOMS – ESCALATED

Quality is good despite supply being lighter than expected. We continue to see lack of labor, shortages in component of growing such as peat moss and other inflationary pressures. We expect to see this continue to be a challenge until some of the growing costs can get under control of this particularly labor intensive and cost sensitive item.

AVOCADOS – ESCALATED
Last week closed out at 66.3 Mil lbs. of Avocados for the US, the largest volume week of all 2022. The California harvest is decreasing as the season is now close to its end. Overall sizing is trending towards 48 counts and smaller. Peru estimates have been revised higher for the next several weeks as fruit is diverted from countries at war. With this additional volume comes some long-awaited market stability that’s expected to continue.

ORANGES – ESCALATED
Valencia’s are showing to be 25% down as an industry peaking on smaller fruit. Due to the industry being 25% down this season, we are anticipating the market to stay very strong all summer. The average diameter of the fruit is the smallest it’s been for many years to start.