Hampered in the winter by cold temperatures in desert growing-regions, spinach growers are now seeing production starting to climb. Though volume has been down this season, growers are hopeful that good upcoming weather helps them make up for low production in December and January.
Mark McBride, Sales Manager at Coastline Produce, says that cold winter weather significantly affected spinach production.
“The season was impacted by cold weather,” he says, “which meant less volume and some crop damage.”
He says that, in addition to affecting the spinach, the cold weather curtailed their ability to harvest.
“With really cold weather,” he says, “that sometimes means there are less hours we can work, so productivity goes down.”
But with ideal growing conditions on the horizon, McBride believes they can make up for the slow start to the season. The rise in production, however, will also mean a dip in prices.
“Prices have eased up a little bit,” he notes, “because as we got better weather, we had better production which means more supply, and more supply leads to lower prices.”
He says that prices for 2 dozen bunch spinach were in the $11 to $14 range for FOB.