Even though Summer doesn’t officially begin until June 21st, out here in California we should at least be enjoying late Spring-like weather. May was 5-6 degrees below normal, with record breaking rainfall amounts. June has started out like May, 5-6 degrees below normal temperatures, rain 2-3 days out of the first 7. Keep in mind that we usually don’t get ANY rain in California from about early May until November! Needless to say, things are a MESS.
Long range weather shows we are FINALLY drying out, but temperatures look to remain cool and below normal for the next 10 days. At least no rain!
Trucks, or LACK of trucks are making new headlines. Rates $8000-9000 to the East coast for mixer loads, and the fruit deal has BARELY started. There is talk that rates could hit $10,000 at peak this Summer. We’ll see. Experience shows that if there in MONEY to be made, more people get in it.

LETTUCE–Salinas Valley got some rain over the weekend, and with cool temperatures, we see this market picking up by the end of this week. Quality is scattered due to the weather issues, so we are making sure we are buying the freshest product we can find.

BROCCOLI–a real shortage here, especially on crowns. The current market is around $20 fob for crowns, due to lack of crown material. We see this market starting to ease off, possibly by the end of this week, or certainly next week.

CAULIFLOWER–wide range in price at high levels. What this means is that there is a range of $18-22.00 fob for 12s. But, we see this market slipping by the end of this week, possibly as much as $5-6.00/box, so we are buying “strategically”.

LEAF ITEMS–no change. Red, green, and romaine all low in price. Supplies mostly coming out of Salinas, with amounts available in Oxnard and Santa Maria, as well. We could possibly see the romaine market pick up by this time next week.

CELERY–good deals on all size celery from the “mostly market” shippers. Dole and T&A are trying to hold $2-4.00/box higher than the general market. We don’t see this market going up too  much, especially with freight rates high and going higher. Right now, freight for a box of celery is higher than the fob price to the East coast!

STRAWBERRIES–the rain over the weekend put many shippers into a “stripping’ mode, getting rid of rain effected fruit. It’s just as well, as we see A LOT of fruit coming on by this weekend, or early next week. Shippers won’t be able to get out of their way with what is around the corner. Quality is pretty good, with big fruit, hard, and sweet. Because of last weekend’s rain, there was quite a bit of fruit harvested that didn’t have good color, with white shoulders and green tips.

Ed Brem
ed@producewest.com