January 22, 2019

Weather this week should start to clear up with temperatures in the 60s-70s and mostly sunny. Our organic Portola looks decent and crews are dropping water-damaged fruit and are diligently packing clean packs to ensure quality and freshness following the recent storms. Strawberry sizing is mostly 18-22 count. We are seeing some green shoulders and light colored fruit here and there, but nothing significant. Color should be better this week with some warmer weather over the weekend. We have not had any decay in the packs since the storms began last week.  

Oxnard:

It has been about a week since the first series of storms swept the Ventura County - fields are finally beginning to dry up, yet there are still some muddy furrows throughout. We are forecasted for dry, warm and windy days ahead - this will help get things back on track. The fruit being picked this week looks very good, though we still are seeing an occasional water-damaged fruit, but it is not impacting the overall pack. Color is 90-100 percent and size is 14-16 count. The organic looks very good - workers are doing an excellent job of keeping the water damaged fruit out of the pack; color 90-100 percent, sizing is at 16-18 count. The plants are starting to load up with some nice fruit - after all the good rain and dry weather forecasted, we should start to see a significant increase in our volume especially on the second round.

 

Mexico:

Chile, Blueberries:

Our Chilean blueberries are looking good in quality, and weather remains warm in this South American growing region. Cauquenes, Linares and Chillán regions all have temperatures in the high 80s-low 90s, and Temuco is slightly cooler with temperatures predominantly in the 70s with firmness and color staying consistent. 

  

Florida:

We visited our Florida growers and ranches last week. Fields looked good and are starting to load up with fruit. We did experience a cooling trend recently with temperatures getting down to 39 degrees with the highs in the 50s. Our Florida growers and field personnel predict a good push in volume in the next 10 to 14 days with the help of warmer weather that is now on the way. The big buzz in the industry right now is Brilliance variety. Growers are happy with its quality, flavor and yield up to this point. 

  

Grab the popcorn and the remote, because it's officially Award Season. The SAG awards are near, not to mention the Oscar's and Grammy's. We know a lot about our consumers and loyal Berry Tribe, and know that our female demographic specifically will surely be tuning into award season, so why not tap into this pop-culture promotion with them in mind -  and to make it that much more fun.

 

 

 The Giant Berry Awards kicks off today, and will run through early March to extend through the duration of all the award-events over the next several weeks. We are tapping into award season to build loyalty with our database of followers and shoppers as we take this time to work behind-the-scenes by adding a soon-t0-be coupon and product store locator functionality to our website. This way, we will have a broader reach once we release these new components of our site. While consumers are having fun by selecting recipes and voting, we will be capturing valuable shopper insights and preferences that we can use in the future to better serve YOU, our partners! Not only that, our consumers may end up with an award themselves when the promotion wraps up. Stay tuned for more updates in the coming weeks about this promotion's performance.

 

Have you heard?  We're back and heading to Tehama Golf Club once again this summer for our 2nd Annual California Giant Chef Invitational. We hope you're as excited as we are, because it's going to be better (and more competitive) than ever.

 

 

 Our industry announcement will go live next Monday, January 28th but we wanted to let our partners know first-hand that we can't wait to have you and your chefs back this summer for the culinary competition everyone is talking about. To register early, follow us to our official Foodservice site and have your chef(s) fill out the initial registration form for a chance to be selected to compete at the event. We look forward to another year of competitive submissions and creative dishes headed our way - not to mention a few new additions to the event this year that you won't want to miss.

We're 4-4 with this awesome feedback!