“We’re up about 15-20 per cent over last year,” says Roger Griess of Lindsay, Ca.’s Suntreat Packing & Shipping Co. “We started harvesting in early March and with the added volume, we’re going longer this season. We usually finish sometime in May and we’ll finish probably mid-June.”
Not only is volume up, but Griess notes that there’s some larger-sized fruit this year as well on this newer variety of mandarin. “The growing conditions gave us some larger fruit,” he says. “We finally got some rain and we had a mild spring. And the quality is great too. Sometimes in mandarins, the larger sizes are dehydrated or mealy and we don’t see that at all with these. They’re really very juicy and good quality fruit even on those large sizes.”
Meanwhile prices tend to be moderate. “They’re not bad but they’re not great,” he says. “They’re lower than last year. By this time last year we were out.”
Domestic production
While competition for the gold nuggets around this time of year tends to come from other summer type fruit including other citrus, stone fruit and grapes, it remains for now a piece of fruit that’s grown almost solely domestically. “There are some nuggets grown in Australia but I don’t think they’ll be exporting this way,” says Griess. “I don’t think it’s in any growing regions that don’t have some sort of cold treatment protocol to come into the United States. So I don’t think we’ll see it anytime soon in the U.S.”
Meanwhile, Suntreat is working on opening a new packing line after making it through the season with one packing house lighter. A fire tore through Suntreat’s Lindsay plant last August. “But we’re building a new line at the Dinuba plant and that will be ready by September 1 for the navel season,” says Griess. The company will slow down production over the summer in order to gear up for the new line launching September 1st, which will pack largely oranges such as Navels, Valencias and Cara Caras.
For more information:
Roger Griess
Suntreat Packing & Shipping Co.
Tel: +1-559-562-4988
rogerg@suntreat.com
www.suntreat.com