Supplies of hard green cooking-type bananas is steady for now but that will soon change.
“We’re going to start seeing supply go down due to cold temperatures hitting Central America. And in South America, Ecuador and Colombia will start wrapping up again because the rainy season is starting for them,” says Jose M. Roggiero of Miami, Fl.-based Freshway Produce, Inc., which sources bananas out of Costa Rica, Ecuador and Guatemala. “So we’ll see lower increments in volume until the end of the month.” He also adds that supplies of the bananas are similar to supplies at this time last year.
Demand for the bananas has been steady and have picked up even after an uneventful end of 2018 for the commodity. “The end of the year wasn’t as strong as we’d predicted it to be,” says Roggiero. “We were forecasting big demand but overall it was just regular demand. The beginning of this year also started slow but we expect that it should increase this month.”
Pricing to change?
While pricing has been steady, he does anticipate there may be fluctuations happening towards the end of the month given the anticipated change in supply levels. He also adds that last year, the market was cheaper at this time.
Looking ahead, he also anticipates a pick up again in demand. “There’ll be more movement at store level. Everybody wants to get the consumers back and promotions will happen along the way,” he says. “Having kids back to school and things like that really helps get demand to normal levels—there’s more home cooking going on.”
For more information:
Jose M. Roggiero
Freshway Produce LLC.
Tel: +1 (786) 300-4485
jose@freshwayusa.com
www.freshwayusa.com