Importers have plenty of kiwis to work with for the next few weeks, although demand is somewhat low. “I have a great supply of California fruit left; around 60% is in 30s and large,” said Chris Kragie with Western Fresh Marketing. He has “OK supplies” on the west coast and, alternately, a great supply of Italian kiwi on the east coast, but low demand. “We’re coming out of 3-4 weeks of holidays, schools being out, and right now on top of that some bad weather but we’ll start to see some relief over the next couple of weeks.”
Kragie says things should pick up as they usually do in the second and third week of January when demand starts to increase on both coasts. “We could really use it on the east because pricing is very low. Prices now are lower than anticipated and lower then expected but the market is starting to rebound as the excess supplies are decreasing.”
Chile’s kiwi season will be starting earlier this year because of good weather – earlier than they have in the last five years. Fruit will be shipped likely starting around week 10 and Kragie will have his first shipments by week nine or 10 which will be two to three weeks earlier than 2016’s season.
Kragie says over supply on the east coast is a normal tendency for Italy. “They usually try to ship a certain amount of containers by the first week of Jan to the US and, as that’s starting to dwindle down, markets will start to rebound.”
For more information:
Chris Kragie
Western Fresh Marketing
Tel:: 559-662-0301
