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THE SOURCE.
Stay informed on how the weather and other conditions across the country and the globe affect the quality, availability, and price of you fresh fruits and vegetables.
Seasonal temperatures return out west as monsoonal moisture delivers a few showers to the region. The high humidity will keep overnight temperature well above normal into next week. Scattered showers and thunderstorms continue across Central Mexico as Tropical Storm Kita in the Bay of Campeche stalls off the coast. This system looks to intensify in the bay and become a minimal Hurricane before making landfall near Vera Cruz late Friday. The remnants of Kita will track across Central Mexico over the weekend with moderate to heavy showers and thunderstorms. All eyes remain focused on Irma the dangerous Category 5 Hurricane on its way to South Florida, expected to arrive on Saturday.
ALERT! AVOCADOS: The Mexican avocado industry continues harvesting inadequate supplies of mature fruit that meets the minimum oil content to export to the US. Growers are reluctant to harvest and have fruit rejected at the packing house level, due to lack of maturity. If fruit is rejected it is typically sold on the Mexican national market and growers risk receiving a return that is 50% less than fruit shipped to the US, so they are patiently waiting for fruit to meet minimum maturity standards (1 to 3 weeks).
The combination of rain(inhibiting harvest) and lack of maturity is shorting the market. Weekly Industry shipments are trending upwards, but still very short.
Expecting that demand exceeds supply situation will continue into the 4th week of September, as we are so far behind at this time and inventories are depleted. Depending on size and grade shortages will be 25 to 75%.
Market Conditions will improve as fruit matures over the next few weeks. The outlook for the Fall of 2017 is for increased supplies and promotable volume.
ALERT! RASPBERRIES:
Raspberry supplies will be very limited for the next 2 weeks. The record high heat all growing regions experienced over the weekend has slowed production. When temps get into the high 80s, Raspberry plants start to hold onto the fruit. When trying to pick, the actual berry will not release from the receptacle. This can cause mechanical damage at the time of harvest; slowing production. It usually takes several days after it cools down for the fruit to begin releasing. However, with temps into the 100s, we expect vegetative damage as well which will further set back recovery time for production. Moving forward, we expect some quality challenges with soft fruit. Due to the limited supplies, market prices have increased and will remain firm for the remainder of the season. New harvest is expected to start in Central Mexico by the end of September.
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