Kevin Swords, Sales Manager at DNE World Fruit Sales<hr class="legacyRuler"><hr class="invisible minimal-padding"><hr class="invisible minimal-padding"> “Most of our grapefruit is from the Indian River region, and a lot of our juice oranges, tangerines, and specialty items are over in Polk County. At the peak of the season, we’re hitting all items. We had a couple rain events that made it kind of challenging, but the weather is clear and we’ve had some cold weather that we welcome, which it sweetens and colors the fruit up. We’ve got no significant decreases in supply from last year. Quality has been very good. We did run into some issues earlier on with all the rain. We will be actively trying to promote larger fruit. We know big fruit sells during the holidays. “<hr class="legacyRuler"><hr class="invisible minimal-padding"><hr class="invisible minimal-padding">John Stair, Domestic Commodity Manager of Purity Organic<hr class="legacyRuler"><hr class="invisible minimal-padding"><hr class="invisible minimal-padding">“Currently, we’re picking lemons and grapefruit out of the desert in California. As far as lemons go, there was a freeze last winter which has affected this season’s production, and the estimates on the decrease in lemon production seem to be from anywhere between 25 % and 40 % less. The grapefruit situation in the desert is similar. This season’s harvesting conditions seem to be good for what we will get. There are opportunities on bagged lemons and bagged grapefruit.”<hr class="legacyRuler"><hr class="invisible minimal-padding"><hr class="invisible minimal-padding">Claire Smith, Director of Corporate Communications at Sunkist<hr class="legacyRuler"><hr class="invisible minimal-padding"><hr class="invisible minimal-padding">“We’re harvesting navels right now, mostly in the Central Valley of California. This time of year, we start to get the cool nights, which is very good for production and helps color the fruit. We’ve gotten some rain and that helps with fruit growth. It hinders harvest just a little bit while the fruit dries because we never pick it wet. Very good supply of navels this year. The crop is not quite as large as last year’s, but last year was a huge crop. It’s an excellent crop, and we’re very pleased with how it’s tasting. It’s coloring beautifully, so there should be plenty of crop for the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays.”<hr class="legacyRuler"><hr class="invisible minimal-padding"><hr class="invisible minimal-padding">www.dneworld.com<hr class="legacyRuler"><hr class="invisible minimal-padding"><hr class="invisible minimal-padding">www.purityorganic.com<hr class="legacyRuler"><hr class="invisible minimal-padding"><hr class="invisible minimal-padding">www.sunkist.com<hr class="legacyRuler"><hr class="invisible minimal-padding"><hr class="invisible minimal-padding">
