While earlier this summer, high temperatures were impacting the lime crop in Mexico, the volume of limes has been pretty steady for the past four weeks now. “The crossings between Texas and California have been over 500 loads,” said Tony Campos of International Citrus & Produce. “There is good weather overall in the region Martinez De La Torre.”
Campos said that the majority of the fruit arriving in the U.S. is small sizing coming from the new crop. However, he adds, growers and shippers are still mixing in bigger sizes from the older crop of the citrus fruit.
Crossings pattern
“If you look at the daily crossings, they are light at the beginning of the week and then like clockwork, they are heavy on Wednesdays, Thursdays and Fridays,” said Campos. “This is something that Mexico has gotten used to doing by not harvesting at the beginning of the week to control the outflow and pricing on limes. If there was really a shortage of limes we would see fewer crossings all week long.”
That means that the only shortage right now in limes is in the bigger sizes and there is plenty of small fruit arriving.
As for demand, it has slowed down with better deals to be found on 230s and 250s this week while 200s and larger are steady.
For more information:
Tony Campos
International Citrus and Produce
Tel: +1 (650) 342-4525
[email protected]