Hope for California strawberry supply to stabilize by mid-May
From
| 3 April 2023
Overview of strawberries from California and Florida in the U.S. market, complemented by charts from Agronometrics. Original published on March 30, 2023.
Strawberry supplies are really right at the moment.
Florida: “Florida is on a trend downward as it usually is this time of year. Volume is around where would expect it to be,” said Nick Wishnatzki of Wish Farms.
The state got a late start to the season following Hurricane Ian this past September. “We held off on planting until the storm left our area but some of the field prep work that was done prior to planting was damaged and some fields were flooded, so it took a couple of weeks to get things back up and running,” he said.
California: This is generally the time of year when California begins its sizeable production out of the state. “Unfortunately, they have been delayed significantly due to the flooding rains and cold weather, so strawberry volume is down considerably. California is weeks behind where it should be this time of year,” said Wishnatzki.
Altogether, this has left strawberry pricing strong which is not a surprise given how tight the volume is. “They are in a better spot than they were a few weeks ago and a year ago, but with much lower volumes. That is expected with such an imbalance of supply and demand,” Wishnatzki said. He adds that given all of the challenges the industry has faced in California–weather challenges on top of existing issues such as the increasing costs of labor, farm inputs, transportation and more–it hopes that pricing remains fair and above historical numbers, so growers have an opportunity to make up a little ground on a really tough start to the season.
Source: USDA Market News via Agronometrics.
(Agronometrics users can view this chart with live updates here)
The state of the economy?
In addition, while it hasn’t been seen yet, the concern also remains over consumers to potentially be more discerning with their budgets if the economy slows significantly.
Looking ahead, on the East Coast it’s expected that Florida will continue shipping quality berries. “We only have our best Florida fields and varieties going strong as we go through April,” says Wishnatzki. “We’ve strategically dropped sub-par fields and kept the best plots going, giving them extra care and attention. The hope is that we can continue to harvest up to or into May in Florida to make up some of the gap with California supply.”
On the West Coast, the volume will remain limited yet continue to increase week by week. “We are hopeful that supply coming from California stabilizes in early to mid-May,” adds Wishnatzki.
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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