The California pomegranate harvest is beginning to wind down. "The supply is good. Most of us are finishing up on our harvest of pomegranates, so we'll probably be packing the fresh bins through Thanksgiving," says Justin Bedwell of Bari Produce, adding that it is harvesting the Wonderful variety of the fruit. "We will probably have another 10 to 14 days."
After that, some pomegranate shippers including Bari Produce store pomegranates in long-term storage to bring out in December, meaning in all, fresh pomegranates should be available through January.
As for volume, this year's crop is off by about 10-15 percent which in turn has allowed the fruit that is on the tree to size up making sizing above average.
Holiday timing
While the timing of the crop is as per usual this season, Rosh Hashanah, a Jewish holiday that often includes pomegranates, took place slightly later this year which helped move the product along a bit better in the early season. "Then with Thanksgiving being so late this year, it's kind of doing the same thing with the Wonderful variety and giving us a little bit of extra time to move the fruit through," says Bedwell.
In general, demand is good thanks in part to the holiday season and Bedwell says exports are right about where they should be right now. "Generally people see how the pull and movement go through Thanksgiving and then if there is available supply, they usually try to ramp up a little bit. I'm expecting demand to increase over where our projections are for December," he says.
Then come January, pricing often strengthens and demand comes off somewhat, though movement tends to still stay steady. For Bari Produce, pricing to the grower is up and its pricing overall is approximately two to three percent higher than last year on average. "That's probably associated with the fact that we have bigger-sized fruit that usually sells for more money and we also have less of a crop," says Bedwell.
For more information:
Justin Bedwell
Bari Produce
Tel: +1 (559) 560-5600
[email protected]
www.bariproduce.com