The Trade Buzz

CROP UPDATES

STRAWBERRIES

strawberry

Santa Maria

Quality: Conventional fruit quality has been good, but inconsistent, with some overripe and decayed fruit, particularly due to stretched labor and varying conditions across ranches.  Organic crops are rebounding from prior heat stress, showing better consistency in quality.

Volume: Production is gradually decreasing as many ranches enter post-peak stages, though some later-planted fields maintain peak output.

Pack Counts: Conventional fall crop 18-22. Organic fall crop, 22-24. 

Watsonville/Salinas

Quality: Conventional and organic quality is good with nice sheen, small-to-medium size, strong red color, and good flavor.

Volume: Production continues to decline steadily and quickly. Overall production is forecasted to cease near the beginning of November. 

Pack Counts: Conventional 24-26; Organic 30-34 depending on ranch. 

Florida

Region Update: Production has been pushed back around 3 weeks due to Hurricane Milton. Stay tuned for more updates soon.

BLUEBERRIES

blueberry

All Growing Locations

California Giant has entered a significant gap in our blueberry supply between domestic and imported crops. The Pacific Northwest has wrapped up fresh production and we are currently being supported by limited supplies from Peru, Chile, and Mexico.

This is an industry-wide shortage. Our current forecasts are showing our supplies bottoming out in mid-to-late October before we see volume start to increase and finally re-align around the middle of November. Be prepared for very limited supplies for the month of October with continually increasing and active markets.

RASPBERRIES

raspberry

Mexico

Quality: Overall, fruit is looking good with a strong red color, new varieties sizes and firmness look good.

Volume: Volume for raspberries is staying steady as we enter October.

Watsonville

Quality: Overall, color is a nice dark red color due to the warm temperatures underneath the hoops and sizing of rasps are a good medium size on average.

Volume: Watsonville Raspberries’ production is picking back up.

BLACKBERRIES

blackberry

Mexico

Quality: Quality is fair. 

Volume: Volume for blackberries is picking back as we enter October and have good, steady volume for the rest of the year.

Watsonville

Quality: Quality is fair. Attached calyx and red cell regression is a continual occurrence and are seeing some issues of smaller fruit.

Volume: Overall production volume has taken a steep cut as we enter a low of the season.

Image preview

SEPC Southern Exposure

March 6 – 8th
Orlando, FL

USHBC/NABC Blueberry Hill Climb

March 24 – 28th
Alexandria, VA

CPMA

April 8 – 10th
Montreal, Canada

IFPA Retail Conference

April 30 – May 1st
Dallas, TX

IFPA Washington Conference

June 9 – 11th
Washington, DC

Organic Produce Summit

July 9 – 11th 
Monterey, CA

IFPA Foodservice Conference

July 31 – August 1st
Monterey, CA

SEPC Southern Innovations

September 10 – 13th
Charlotte, NC

USHBC/NABC Blueberry Convention

October 8 – 10th
Seattle, WA

IFPA Global Produce & Floral Show

October 16 – 18th
Anaheim, CA

A berry nice note from a California Giant Berry Farms shopper:

“I’ve never written to a producer of any food, but I am compelled to let you know that your strawberries are consistently the best we’ve ever had. We’ve eaten so many that I’m surprised we haven’t grown stems. Thank you for making us believe again that fruit can be grown, packaged, and shipped and remain delicious.”

The Trade Buzz

Subscribe to The Buzz trade newsletter and receive weekly emails with the latest berry news.

The Berry Buzz logo

Subscribe the Berry Buzz Blog for the latest berry news, recipes, tips, videos and more!