Supplies of guava out of Florida should hit peak late this month.
“We had a rocky start for the past few months on guava but right now we’re coming into a heavy season. We’re going to have tons of guava this year,” says Dennis Sever of Exotic Growers based in Homestead, Florida. “Right now we should be in full swing. But we’ve had four or five cold fronts here and it’s enough to slow everything down.”
Sever notes that peak volumes should hit at the end of April and be available until September-October.
Currently Exotic Growers has approximately 80 acres of Thai guava fruit growing and this year is also its first full year of production on close to 40 acres of Chinese guava. “Others have been growing Chinese guava here for years now but nothing in volume,” he says. While Thai guava is more like an apple as a piece of fruit with crunch and firmness when you bit into it, Sever says Chinese guava is more like a pear in that it tends to be sweeter and softer to eat.
Jump in demand
The plantings of course come following strong demand for the exotic fruit. “We always sell out. We never have enough,” Sever says. He notes that some of that can be attributed to the pandemic, when consumers were at home more and turned to online shopping for new and fresh items. “Our online customer base grew significantly,” he says, adding that consumers do a variety of things with it from eating it raw to including it in salads, juicing it and even making a pie with guava.
As for pricing, as the volume increase on guava, pricing will decrease. “It’s in the $30s and I think by the end of the month it will be in the low $20s, high teens,” says Sever. “Normally when the price drops it’s very hard to raise again so it will probably stay that way until the end of June. Mid-July it might go up again.”
Looking ahead, Exotic Growers has also planted Taiwanese guava which has a red interior. However, production on that won’t actually begin until next year.
For more information:
Dennis Sever
Exotic Growers, Inc.
Tel: +1 (305) 393-1556
[email protected]