The California stone fruit season has already kicked off for Kingsburg Orchards in their Kettleman region ranches in Kingsburg. Harvest began this past Monday with yellow peaches, yellow nectarines, and white peaches and by the end of the week, they hope to start with apricots.
“These last couple of months the weather has been extremely favorable. Perfect springtime weather for our fruits to develop. Not a lot of rain, not too cold or hot, which has resulted in an excellent flavor, quality, and sizing. This is some of the best fruit we have ever seen in the early season. It is very similar to what we see mid-season,” Chad Allred with Kingsburg Orchards explains.
Yellow peaches and yellow nectarine.
Exciting season ahead
“We are looking forward to a very exciting season. We are always first to the market due to our microclimate in this specific region. This region is along the Coastal Foothills and is at a slightly higher elevation which typically has temperatures that are 3-8 degrees warmer than the main central valley. This year we anticipate a 12–14-day separation in start dates between Kettleman and the main central valley region. Due to COVID-19 most retailers saw positive gains in their overall produce department sales in 2020. Some have reported gains of 30-40 percent. Hoping to continue building on these positive sales in 2021 many of our customers are very excited to get going earlier 1-2 weeks earlier than normal. Sales have been very strong to start the year, Allred noted: “We hope the trend in eating more at home and more health consciousness is here to stay. But it’s still too early to fully answer this question”.
Millennials eat less California stone fruit
Allred also provided some interesting market information. “What’s interesting to see is that the younger generations - more specifically millennials and Generation Y - have never really been introduced to stone fruit. I think one of the real positives of COVID is that many in these demographics tried our products for the first time and not only enjoyed them but have continued to purchase them. We are very excited about this and think that with education, sampling, flavor, and quality we will continue to grow with them. Exclusive and better-eating varieties with the best flavor are the key to our long-term success and we have set ourselves apart from our competition in this category” Allred says.
White peaches
Big challenges ahead
The big challenges for the Californian stone fruit market continue to be labor, pricing, availability of water resources, and costs of raw materials. We have seen as much as a 15 percent increase to input costs in 2021, while pricing on the retail side has not kept pace with these increases. “Prices will have to increase in both the short and long term if we all want to enjoy Californian stone fruit in the years to come,” Allred noted.
Contact:
Chad Allred
Vice President of Sales and Marketing
Kingsburg Orchards
P: 559.897.2986
F: 559.897.4532
[email protected]
www.kingsburgorchards.com
