Fruit Royale’s Chilean grapes are on their way

“Let’s put it this way — we’ve always got grapes,” said Louie Galvan, managing partner of Fruit Royale Inc. The company, based in Delano, CA, has been in the table grape business since 2004, but Galvan started in the produce industry in the early 90s.

At Fruit Royale they do it all, operating as a year-round grower, supplier, importer, exporter and distributor. Galvan is proud of the company’s high-quality offerings, stating “our claim to fame is we’ve got grapes every day of the year.” Galvan credits their wide scope of production. “We have production facilities in both the southern and northern hemispheres, from Chile and Peru, Mexico and California,” he said. That equates to roughly two million cases of year-round fruit.

“We just wrapped up our California season, and now our imports from Chile are on their way,” he said. Regarding the Chilean imports, Galvan said volume is up and the fruit looks really good. “Our coolers are empty for the California 2021 season and the quality was outstanding right to the end, we expect the same for our Chilean grapes.”

Volumes (in Kg) of grapes in the US Market, by origin

Source: USDA Market News via Agronometrics.
(Agronometrics users can view this chart with live updates here)

The company’s Chilean ranches started harvesting their Perlons, Autumn Royales, Crimsons, Thompsons, and Ina-15’s in mid-December, with Flames and Sugraones coming shortly thereafter. “We’ve got all the bell-ringers, Sweet Globe, and the Sweet Celebration, some of your IFG Varietals,” he said. Fruit Royale partners with International Fruit Genetics (IFG), the world’s largest private breeder of varietal table grapes.

Galvan gets excited about the new varieties, but admitted, “it’s almost impossible to keep up with them all, every season we’ve got new varieties popping up that keep raising the bar on taste and size.” Fruit Royale knows the importance of innovation within the industry, “we’re trying to keep in front of it, we know that’s what the customer wants,” said Galvan.

Fruit Royale is seeing exciting category growth, but crucial to sustained success is consumer engagement and education. “Nowadays consumers want to know flavor profiles, what regions the fruit is coming from, and how you’re stewarding the crop,” he said. Access to that information is a positive for everyone, “informed buyers, buy more grapes.”

Regarding all the talk about delays along the supply chain, Galvan isn’t worried, “we haven’t been impacted yet.”

Fruit Royale is proud of its premier offerings coming out of Chile. “From the initial projections it looks like we should be able to promote our Chilean fruit by mid-January, right through the early part of April,” said Galvan. At that point, Galvan said production will switch to their facilities out of Mexico, “like I said, year-round grapes, we don’t stop.”

Volumes (in Kg) of grapes from Chile in the US Market

Source: USDA Market News via Agronometrics.
(Agronometrics users can view this chart with live updates here)

The News in Charts is a collection of stories from the industry complemented by charts from Agronometrics to help better tell their story.

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