NORTH AMERICA - It’s high pricing in the bell pepper market as supplies continue to remain tight and the spring gets underway. Growing regions enter a period of transition over the next six weeks and may see further decrease across supplies, shippers tell me. For some companies, supplies will wind down from mainland Mexico and the new west coast growing areas in Baja and the Coachella Valley will work to get going.
“Hot house production in Canada will begin during this period and will be able to take some pressure off the western production. Florida and the entire southeast seem to still be trying to shake off the severe weather events of the past few months and their production, while limited, will improve weekly,” Mike Aiton, Prime Time’s Marketing Director tells as we talk about how all of these factors have combined to drive prices up as availability has decreased.
He adds that larger size fancy green bell peppers are currently being quoted in the $40 range. New crop production of red, green, yellow and mini sweets for Prime Time will be heavy beginning in mid-May, just in time for great promotional opportunities at seasonal price levels for Memorial Day.
“Getting to that point will be quite an adventure,” Mike says.
For Nogales, AZ-based SunFed, supplies continue to remain light as weather early in the season continues to play itself out in odd behavior from the plants.
“As temperatures have warmed, production still remains irregular with multiple crops showing production stresses from earlier climatic events. This is two years in a row where the month of March has shown abnormal supplies,” Mark Cassius, Executive Vice President and General Manager for SunFed, tells me. “Volumes are down roughly 20% from March 2014. Could this become the new norm for March production trends?”
Mark also agrees that Canadian production will cause a slight increase in supplies, however it’s not quite spring yet in the great white north and inclement weather the next few weeks could derail the early production momentum, he notes.
As the transition continues, stay tuned to AndNowUKnow for more updates on the bell pepper market.
