It’s too early to tell whether California will have its third record strawberry crop in a row this year, but volume seemed headed that way in early June.
And growers say ample supplies should be available for the Fourth of July, Labor Day and beyond.
“The plants are healthy, so we expect to have a good, strong crop all during the summer,” said Carolyn O’Donnell, communications director for the California Strawberry Commission, Watsonville.
“We’re ahead of where we were at this time last year,” she said in early June.
As of the week ending June 2, the state’s growers had harvested 82.3 million trays of strawberries.
A year ago, that figure was about 79 million trays, and two years ago the number also was in that range.
The high volume was keeping f.o.b. prices relatively low.
F.o.b. prices for trays of eight 1-pound clamshell containers of medium-large strawberries were mostly $6-7 as of June 5, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
A year earlier, they were $8-9.
There’s going to be a lot of fruit, so the price definitely is not going to go up.
In mid-May, prices were as low as $4 per tray, but Cindy Jewell, vice president of marketing for Watsonville-based California Giant Berry Farms, noted that prices had inched upward, and she expected prices to remain consistent for the near future with no major increases.
“There’s going to be a lot of fruit, so the price definitely is not going to go up,” she said in early June.
She was hopeful that supermarkets would reflect the low prices in their ads.
“Ideally, we’ve got retailers who are trying to move (strawberries) through the department as quickly as possible and keep the pipeline full,” she said.
California Giant was encouraging consumers to buy extra strawberries and freeze them or make jam, she said.
Salinas, Calif.-based Naturipe Farms LLC was experiencing record volume and record production, said Craig Moriyama, director of berry operations.
A relatively cool spring infused the berries with lots of vigor, he said, and that resulted in an “explosion of production” after a fairly slow start to the season in February.
Growers expected quality and large sizing to continue.
“Everything is looking great for summer,” said Jim Grabowski, director of marketing for Watsonville-based Well-Pict Inc.
But marketing strawberries becomes more of a challenge as summer progresses, Grabowski said.
Now we’re banging heads with many other fruits — we have to really work for our spot in the produce mix.
Coming out of the winter months, strawberries are like the new kid on the block, he said.
“Everybody wants strawberries.”
But as more kinds of summer fruit appear, maintaining demand becomes more of a challenge.
“Now we’re banging heads with many other fruits,” he said, like stone fruit, melons and domestic grapes.
“We have to really work for our spot in the produce mix,” he said.
Berry patch promotions featuring strawberries, blueberries, raspberries and blackberries are one way to keep interest in berries at a peak, he said.
As volume picks up, so do the sizes of strawberry packaging.
In the past, the 1-pound clamshell was about the only size package that would show up on produce shelves in mainstream supermarkets, Jewell said.
Larger sizes — 2- to 4-pound packages — were almost exclusively the domain of big box stores.
“Now 2-pound containers are very common throughout retail,” she said, and even 3- and 4-pound clamshells show up when prices are extremely reasonable.
Grabowski agreed.
Various deals on 1-pounders — like “two-for” pricing and buy-one, get-one promotions — were used in the past to more move strawberries, he said.
But that’s changing.
“Two-pounders have become more and more part of the regular mix, as far as being an everyday shelf item,” he said.
Naturipe also is packing more of the large-size clamshells than in the past, Moriyama said.
“Big packs and low prices will move the volume,” he said.
