With the addition of celery and asparagus, the desert now has a full compliment of items that will carry us well into March and April. This certainly helps with truck loading, with regards to pickups and freight rates. It is also important to note that when a truck finishes in the Yuma area, as opposed to finishing in Salinas, it puts the truck approximately 8 hours CLOSER to the East coast. So, that also helps deliver a day earlier to provide fresher product.

Long range weather in the desert growing regions show dry days, with highs in the mid 70’s, which is perfect. The nighttime temperatures, which we watch very closely, don’t show much in the way of freezing, except for a few isolated pockets in the Coachella Valley. Still, unless it gets below freezing for extended hours, we won’t see much in the way of blister and peel issues. But, by next week, there appears to be a MAJOR weather change headed to the desert, with heavy rains expected. We will monitor the forecasts all this week.

Trucks are available at seasonal rates.

LETTUCE–plenty of lettuce available at affordable prices. Now that retail prices have been lowered, we are starting to see better demand for iceberg, and that could prompt shippers to look to raise their prices later this week. Still, we don’t anticipate a major jump.

BROCCOLI–a fairly wide range in price on bunch and crowns, depending upon the area. Salinas and Santa Maria are where the cheaper prices are due to being out of the way and some quality issues. So, the desert is where you want to be for the best quality, even if you have to pay a dollar or two more.

CAULIFLOWER–a pretty wide range in price, with as much as a $4.00/box spread. There isn’t much demand, overall, so even the shippers that are asking for more money are “negotiating”. We could possibly see this market start to go up towards the end of the week.

LEAF ITEMS–as far as markets are concerned, we are basically back to normal on all leaf. Red, green, boston, and romaine are all priced right, and are good ad items to push. Romaine hearts are still active, due to the heavy demand for romaine in the salads. At the retail level, hearts are still a better deal than buying a head of romaine.

CELERY–pretty strong market here. After dropping like a rock when the market was coming off a $30 and $40 range, prices came down lower than they should have, and have now bounced back up. We continue to point this out in our bulletins, so it is worth noting. Currently, the market for the “preferred” labels are at $20 fob, with the other shippers $2-4.00/box cheaper. Celery hearts are still VERY active and are close to $30 fob.

ASPARAGUS–more shippers are starting up, but good volume is still a week or two off. Still, it is time to think about ads for asparagus, as we get into February promotions.