California is heading towards the middle stretch of its grape season and so far, the season has seen good supply and quality out of the San Joaquin Valley. "The fruit is clean. We've weathered the heat in July in most cases really well. The later varieties don't seem to be much affected by the heat we had and the mid and late-season varieties are seeing good yields and quality," says Jim Beagle of Grapery.
This follows the first normal growing season the region has seen in some time. "The only thing abnormal was a little bit of extra heat in July," Beagle says, adding that along with some traditional varieties, it's harvesting some of its specialty varieties right now such as Cotton Candy. "We had a good wet winter so there's been plenty of water. We had good growing conditions during the spring as well." Looking ahead, conditions are anticipated to stay favorable–which includes warm, dry weather to help the fall grapes ripen–for the near future.
Steady turnover
As for demand, Beagle says there's a lot of demand because of the eating quality of the fruit being put on shelves. "Great-tasting fruit in front of consumers really has more of a bigger impact on demand than anything else. We're getting a lot of repeat purchases and it's showing in the demand and the turnover that everyone appears to be experiencing, both at the grower and retail level," he says.
Meanwhile, pricing is good on California grapes and no significant changes are anticipated in the near term.
For more information:
Jim Beagle
Grapery
Tel: +1-661-387-9300
[email protected]
www.grapery.biz