MARKET UPDATE 04.14.24

Good afternoon,

ICEBERG LETTUCE out of Huron California will continue for another week. The bumper crop serves a great purpose in easing us through the seasonal transition from Yuma to Salinas, but the yield is much smaller out of Huron than other growing regions. The Salinas Valley seems to have dodged the severity of the rain this past week, leaving LETTUCE and ROMAINE markets unscathed. ROMAINE production has started in Salinas, helping reduce prices for next week.

Supplies of Canadian CARROTS have finished up for the season as product out of Mexico and Southern California steps up to fill its place. Thankfully, the start to the season has been strong south of the border, easing markets. Pricing has come off significantly since its peak in the middle of March.

This Chilean GRAPE season has been difficult and we are now close enough to the end to see that things will surely not improve until we see fruit start up in Mexico. With Chilean fruit arriving in a slow trickle, the hope is that we don't see an outright gap in product as we change our calendars over to May. That will all depend on availability and, especially in export, quality. The Mexican grape season looks to start in mid-may and hopefully that fruit brings some pricing relief with it.

GREEN ONION supplies tightened up this past week due to lighter yields. Rain and quality issues set back production and have caused this spike in pricing. Warmer conditions are expected into the weekend so we should see GREEN ONIONS bounce back soon.

BROCCOLI markets are hanging on for another week as the rains set back Southern California crops as well as stopped production on already ailing Salinas product. From Monday to today, conditions have improved but we haven't seen significant positive changes in pricing and availability just yet.

We are FINALLY starting to see better volume on Florida WATERMELON. Pricing is still higher than seasonal averages, but there is plenty of good news when it comes to expected availability ahead. Next week we should see some pricing relief and as Florida production picks up.

More as it happens,

Parker Tannehill