La Niña follows El Niño
Mexico's upcoming asparagus season could be interesting
US as main export market
Horticola Del Desierto is the production company located in Caborca, Mexico, while Desert Farms (subsidiary company of Horticola) commercializes the production. “Green asparagus are still popular in the United States. Although it's important to promote the product as soon as the region Caborca starts production. There is a lot of production coming from Caborca and the surrounding area. During the months February and March more product is sold in the supermarkets because of the promotions that are done”, continues Bram.
The core product of Desert Farms is green asparagus, with the United States being their main market. Over the past two seasons of 2015 and 2016, the prices have been reasonably good with average volumes. In 2014, this was completely different as the prices were much lower due to too much product in the market.” Bram believes it was mainly caused by the lack of promotions combined with an enormous production.
Bram explains that the Mexican production isn’t really in competition with other producing countries. “The US domestic production has been decreasing over the last years, so it hasn’t affected us over the last two years. Besides, the demand is really high for the US production that is available, so often it’s sold at higher price levels. Peru normally tries to produce outside of our harvest window, trying to benefit from higher pricing.
There is a huge production of asparagus in Caborca in Mexico, which normally results in lower market prices during the peak of the season, which is excellent for supermarkets that want to set up promotions. Besides, the Caborca production is so close to the US, that the product is transported by truck to the US market. We can almost call it local production."
Improvements
“Despite the asparagus market being quite developed, we are always looking for different ways to improve”, continues Bram. “Recently, we have been focusing on environmental conscious improvements. Not concerning the production itself, but in our facilities. For example, we opened a water recycling plant in one of our facilities. Last season we already performed some tests and we expect that it will be fully operational during the coming season. By using recycled water, we are able to save half of the water we would normally use. In figures, it’s about 100,000 litres of water that can be saved each day. Moreover, another development is that we use solar energy in our production facility. Not just us, but also the distribution centre we work with in the United States.”
Asia Fruit Logistica
Besides distributing into the US market, Desert Farms also export to several other destinations. This is one of the reasons the company will be attending the Asia Fruit Logistica in Hong Kong. Bram explains that they want to be present during several exhibitions throughout the year. “We miss the Fruit Logistica in Berlin, because it’s during our harvesting period. In Europe, we work with our existing clients, which we visit during trips or exhibitions such as the PMA and Asia Fruit Logistica. In addition, Asia is a big potential market, but still a lot of development is necessary. That’s why it’s so important to be attending the shows. Even though China has some restrictions, we are allowed to export to several Asian countries. However, not all Asian countries have high volume demand for asparagus. Those markets are the ones we need to develop and create more demand for. I believe this is something in which all asparagus producing countries should cooperate. It benefits all the countries exporting their asparagus, and it will take off some price pressure on the existing markets.
Visit Desert Farms at Asia Fruit Logistica: Hall 3b/N-25
For more information:
Bram Hulshoff
Desert Farms D.B.A Horticola Del Desierto
300 S Imperial Ave. El Centro, CA 92243 Ste. 15
Mexican Cell Phone: + 52 1 (637) 935 6702
USA Cell Phone: + 1 (925) 202 6259
Direct office : + 1 (209) 221-4704
E: Bram@desertfarms.net
www.desertfarms.net