While storage cabbage continues to ship, fresh cabbage supply is shipping from Florida at the moment. "Storage is fine--going into the season, there were a lot of farms that were short," says Eric Hansen of Hansen Farms LLC. "However storage has its market for people who want that harder, dense cabbage."
Supply is tight on bulk shipments and it is seeing pricing of about .22 cents/lb.
As for fresh cabbage, the supply had been tight out of Florida. "That's mainly because of the weather. It's been rainier than normal and things are just not yielding well," Hansen says. "Though I think supply has been better than it was three to four weeks ago."
Moving up the coast
The Florida season should wrap up in April, after which production moves north up the East Coast through Georgia in May, North Carolina in June and then New York in July.
As for demand, with St. Patrick's Day a few weeks away, a prime cabbage-consumption holiday, demand has been steady and is likely to continue to stay that way, if not strengthen.
Meanwhile, Hansen is working already on setting up contracts for the upcoming fresh season in New York. "We need to negotiate prices to where they need to be to respond to the labor prices. As that continues to escalate, we need to keep our contract pricing up with the times so we need to negotiate all of that in," he says.
For more information:
Eric Hansen
Hansen Farms
Tel: +1 585-526-5260
[email protected]
http://hansenfarms.com