Asian Pears
Demand for Asian pears should stay steady as California winds down and Southern Hemisphere product enters the pipeline.
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Courtesy World Variety Produce |
Los Angeles-based World Variety Produce, which markets product under the Melissa’s label, expects a smooth transition between the California and Chilean Asian pear deals, said Robert Schueller, director of public relations.
Chilean product should begin arriving about March 7, Schueller said.
“The weather’s been favorable, and we’re anticipating a standard crop” out of Chile, he said.
For the second year in a row, Kingsburg Orchards, Kingsburg, Calif., will not import Asian pears from Chile, said Bob Maxwell, special projects manager.
The extension and growth of the company’s California Asian pear deal is the main reason for its decision not to bring in Southern Hemisphere product, Maxwell said.
“We won’t finish for another five weeks,” he said Feb. 14. “We couldn’t work in the Chileans’ best interest as long as we had our own.”
Kingsburg expects to ship about 200,000 more boxes of California product during the remaining weeks of the deal, Maxwell said.
Overall Asian pear volumes should be up about 10% this season for Kingsburg, Maxwell said.
The Oppenheimer Group, Vancouver, British Columbia, expects to begin receiving Asian pears from Chile in late March, said David Nelley, apple and pear category director.
Oppenheimer expects a similar quantity of Chilean Asian pears as last season, but the company will not likely be importing from New Zealand because of the strength of the New Zealand dollar, Nelley said.
New Zealand growers, he said, will opt for selling more of their Asian pears at home.
World Variety Produce plans to wind down its Korean pear deal about the same time as its California Asian pear deal, Schueller said. Demand has been strong on Koreans this season, with expected volumes about 8% larger than last year.
For the balance of the California season, markets should stay about where they’ve been for months, Maxwell said.
“There were $9 in September, they’re $10.10 today,” he said Feb. 14. “Of all the items we sell, they’re the least mercurial. They start at one price, and they don’t go up or down by more than a dollar for the whole season.”
Demand for Chilean Asian pears should be very strong once shipments from California and Korea stop, Schueller said.
On Feb. 15, the Los Angeles terminal market reported prices of $11-14 for 1-layer cartons of California hosui 14s, comparable to last year at the same time.
Maxwell said a majority of U.S. shoppers still don’t know what an Asian pear — or apple pear, the name by which Kingsburg markets them — is, and there’s plenty of room for even more growth.
“We’ve got a long ways to go, and we’re really excited about it,” he said.
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