There's a feeling that carrots are about to hit an inflection point. "There have been some supply issues when you look at the overall picture," says Mark Sato of Fortune Growers, a Mexican-based grower with packing partners in California and the East Coast.
Canada: "Canada ended its season really early. Most Canadian supply is just about wrapped up, which is pretty early," says Sato, noting that generally, the country ships for at least another month. However in 2025, issues during the growing season pushed the carrots out earlier than normal and that resulted in some low markets.
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California: California has seen a fair bit of rain in the past 1.5 months and that has hurt supply from the state.
Southeast: "The Southeast does grow carrots–Florida is growing right now but they've had some cold there too and that's suppressed some of that production," says Sato.
Mexico: Mexico largely grows around the Canadian season given that Canada supplies a large part of the Northeast with the vegetable.
In addition, Mexico's rainy season in the summer can impact plantings. "There were definitely rains in September-October in Mexico and that prevented some of that seeding," says Sato. "As far as production in Mexico goes right now, there is a good amount of availability at the border today because of the current market conditions. Growers are asking about purchasing lots because everyone's feeling that there will be a coming wave of demand because of what's been happening with supply in some of these other regions."
This follows a challenging 2025 in Mexico for numerous commodities which has led to a realignment around what volume expectations should be. What's also factoring into Mexican production is the exchange rate and the dropping in value of the U.S. dollar. In turn, that has made it stressful for Mexico growers knowing that they're going to get less of a conversion return.
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Elevated freight rates
What is also happening right now are increased freight rates. "In the last few weeks, there have been huge snowstorms across the country, especially on the Eastern seaboard, so freight rates have gotten really high," says Sato. "That really hurts an item like carrots that are really heavy and you're going to pay a lot per case to go to that part of the country."
Meanwhile, demand has been slower on items such as carrots and even other more popular items such as broccoli. "That said, this has created some good buying opportunities as part of the calm before the storm. Savvy buyers might stock up carrots, an item that holds, over the next couple weeks," says Sato.
To date, pricing on carrots has been fairly depressed over the last couple of weeks which is surprising given items on other wet veg such as celery and broccoli have taken off and are staying strong. This even with the same headwinds such as increased freight rates.
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"So it's an odd year with some of these markets that we're seeing," says Sato. "However the expectation is that we should see carrot pricing spike sometime over the next few weeks due to the lack of supply, regions wrapping up early and general cold. I think we're on the precipice of seeing a pretty strong market."
For more information:
Mark Sato
Fortune Growers
Tel: +1 (805) 481-1055
https://www.fortunegrowers.com/
