It had been a great season so far for Florida strawberries. "Prior to the last three weeks, it was very good," says John Wilkinson of Blazer Wilkinson Gee, LLC. "Between planting and first production, the weather had been good and everyone had good crops that are now getting disrupted."
© Blazer Wilkinson Gee, LLC.
Strawberry supply from Florida is now tightening due to three weeks of subnormal temperatures. This week, many ranches had to run sprinklers to frost-protect the fruit. "When it gets to these kinds of temperatures, they're not going to grow or color up," adds Wilkinson.
This week and next week, the forecast is for temperatures to remain cold. "So I would say with all of this, the Florida supply will be disturbed and delayed and some tonnage will be lost," adds Wilkinson.
California strawberry production
Meanwhile on the west coast, Oxnard and Santa Maria, California are underway with early limited production though California has also had its production disrupted by rains. They largely affected Oxnard given it had more mature berries come on at that time. Baja California is also harvesting as is Central Mexico.
© Blazer Wilkinson Gee, LLC.
All of this is now leaving pretty good markets on questionable supply coming out of Florida for the next 10 days.
Given the tight supply, demand is proving difficult for strawberries. Also with Valentine's Day, a strawberry-forward holiday, coming up mid-February, supply is expected to be short though pricing is still to be determined.
As for after Valentine's Day? "You get to the point that if you have a crop looming, when the weather subsides, you don't want to get too aggressive in pricing," says Wilkinson, noting that with a significant amount of acreage from California coming on in the next few weeks, Florida could be in the position where it needs to catch up on production in February and March.
For more information:
John Wilkinson
Blazer Wilkinson Gee, LLC
Tel: +1 (800) 676-1577
https://bwgberries.com/
