The California fresh strawberry season is off to a slow start. USDA is reporting that California has shipped a little over 1/3 of what they had for this time last year. Mexico and Florida are also behind last year's volumes. Mexico has shipped 71% of season to date compared to last year and Florida is 65% of last year's shipments. The cold and wet weather has slowed the progress of the crop in California. It is thought that the tree fruit bloom in the Central Valley could come later than it did last year.

The Processing Strawberry Advisory Board of California has reported on the varietal changes of strawberries going to processors in California. This trend looks to be similar in 2008.

The field price paid to growers in 2007 was the highest price on record for processing strawberries according to the Processing Strawberry Advisory Board of California. It was 12% higher than the price paid in 2006 and 28% higher than the price paid in 2005.

 

In Dandong area there is another variety being grown by local growers in polyhuts. It is locally called "A-berry", or "Spanish A", "Virginia". It is a said to be a Spanish variety and it is for fresh market. It is sweet, with good flavor, firm and in red color. Usually at the end of its sason the price can also come down for frozen prcessing. Yuhua, a famous local packer, process this variety for their Japanese customers a lot everyear.

Pic-1 Shandong polyhuts                                                                                                                      Pic-2 Dandong Open Fields

Incentived by the high raw material strawberry price in the past two years, the growers planted some 40-50% of strawberries more than what they did in 06/07 season. So far the plants are growing well. If there is not frost weather hurting the blooms in Spring, it will be good a year for the strawberries.

In Shandong/Anqiu area, the most popular variety is still Chandler ("US# 3" as called locally). And in Dandong area, Honeoye is popular in open fields. It is said that in the area of Lianyungang, Jiangsu province, a local packer imported some Honeoye from Dandong years ago but was bankrupted. It is some 4 hours driving from Laiyang and some Laiyang packers plan go there for the Honoye. Last season several packers tried buying raw material Honeoye from Dandong due to the high pricing in Shandong and they shipped the fruits through the sea from Dalian to Yantai and then to Laiyang at nigh. It takes over 12 hours.

The local packers are a bit pessimistic of the upcoming year due to the weakness of USD and the CIQ's strict rule with exporting to the US. China CIQ has gotten very much strict with food safety issues since last spring. And it has been a polpular topic of China officials and public press, TV news, newspapers, etc. They even request thorough screening of residues of samples. Some packers have started working with Russia markets and Middle East markets.

The current cold storage USDA numbers show that frozen strawberry inventory has increased by 28.8% over where it was in 2006. Frozen raspberry inventory has decreased by 34.7% over the number reported in 2006. The greatest increase in strawberry is in IQF inventory (up nearly 76%). The greatest decrease in raspberry inventory from 2006 is in 400 pound drums (down more than 54%).

See the attached video report.

Processing apple volume is still down in Washington state as reported by processors to USDA. Current processing volume is less than 2/3 of what it was at this time last year. Pricing is in the range of $230-$250 per ton. Other areas of the U.S. are reporting average prices of $200 per ton for processing grade apples according to USDA.

See the attached video report for current reported numbers of California strawberries in 2007.

USDA reporting for November 30, 2007 Vs. November 30, 2006 shows an increase of 19% in fresh pear storage and a decrease of 2% for fresh apple storage. The U.S. Apple Association has reported a 4% decrease in apple holdings for January 1, 2008 Vs. January 1, 2007. They report a 3% increase in the movement of fresh apples in December 2007 over December 2006.