Page 9 - TheSource_Hardies_28JUN2017

Commodity Updates

Jun 28, 2017

Squash (Western) Tomatoes (Western)

Yellow Squash and Italian Squash are finished in all districts California has stared shipping tomatoes helping overall
and production in Santa Maria has improved due to warm volume but quality remains a concern. Excessive heat is
weather. Sizing is mostly medium followed by fancy and showing signs of tenderness, bruising and sunburn in the
xfancy with very few W/B being offered. Hard Squash is still crops and quality is mixed between initial picks and newer
being offered from the central valley in California, Butternut fruit. Another heat wave is expected over the valley this
and Kabocha are good supply, Acorn and Spaghetti are week though not as extreme and volumes are expected
very limited. to improve further. Roma tomatoes remain very limited in
availability and look to be the only variety forecasted to
Stone Fruit be tight through the rest of the month. Northern California
will begin picking new roma crops this week so prices will
begin to ease off as more supply is injected into the market.
Stone fruit market continues to be strong in pricing and Grape tomatoes are widely available in abundance and at
lighter supplies again this week and for the foreseeable suspension agreement minimums. Cherry prices are stable
future. We were able to visit some of our stone fruit despite the reduced acreage in the west.
shippers earlier this week and most had the same
comments. This year’s crop is much less compared to the
last two seasons. The last two seasons were both bumper
crop years. This year’s crop had a much lighter fruit set
due mainly to rain at various times of the winter. Chill hours
were also a contributing factor to this. Sizing will continue
be the bigger sizes for the most part with smaller fruit being
the more difficult to cover for orders. All shippers we visited
with expect this to be a season long trend. The Southeast
regions output will also be impacted due to a late season
freeze. This will put more pressure on California shippers to
cover what they are short. Our shippers we spoke to said
they will not be able to cover what other regions are short.

Tomatoes (Eastern)

The market is down slightly from last week. The Florida
crop in Quincy has finished up for the season, however
he South Carolina deal continues to crank out tomatoes.
Tomatoes will start moving farther north up the Eastern
coast. Arkansas is in full production but is nearing the end
of the season. Alabama and Tennessee will be starting by
the middle of July. The roma tomato market is steady and
forested to be limited in availability through the rest of the
month. Grape tomatoes are widely available and cherry
tomatoes are steady as well. There has been a lot of rain
and tropical weather in the East and quality is reported as
being better than expected.

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