Ben Antongiovanni, Vice President of Sales, Atlas Produce<hr class="legacyRuler"><hr class="invisible minimal-padding">We are currently harvesting our 100% California grown, Caramel Naturel Medjool Dates. We began harvesting in California's Coachella Valley. The weather in the Coachella Valley has been ideal for Medjools this year. We are projecting our supply to be up 20-25% this year due to increased production and great weather in Coachella. Many of our retailers have seen large increase in sales the last couple of years with the Caramel Naturel brand. We are seeing a trend of consumers reaching for a fresh Caramel Naturel Medjool date. I want retailers to pay a little attention to the date category. Its not the sexiest category and most retailers overlook it. With a little care we can work together and create a very profitable year-round item. <hr class="legacyRuler"><hr class="invisible minimal-padding">DJ Ryan, Sales Manager, SunDate<hr class="legacyRuler"><hr class="invisible minimal-padding">We just started harvesting Medjools. We will start harvesting Deglet Noor Dates but not until late September or most likely early October. We are harvesting in the Coachella Valley. Its a really humid, hot, weather right now; more humid than we would like. It doesn't necessarily affect production, it just slows down the workers. We are coming into the new crop of Medjools with very little supply, which is what we want to do. We actually came up a little bit short on supply and I think that was both us and the industry. We really will have a clean cooler as we enter a new crop but right now our supply is very low. Market has been strong, particularly after Ramadan finished. There wasn't a lot of fruit in the market and demand was fairly high both domestically and with exports. Its hard to identify a specific price on Medjool dates simply because there is such a wide range of pack styles and grading. But the market has been strong, even though our production has increased every year we have seen demand at least match if not outpace our production. We seen continued price growth year after year. <hr class="legacyRuler"><hr class="invisible minimal-padding">
