Hurricane Debby’s slow march through Northern Florida, Georgia, and the Carolinas brought rainfall totals worthy of gold medals: over 15 inches in isolated parts of Florida and South Carolina and around 13 inches in Georgia.
Despite the storm’s best attempts to extinguish supply, summer growers in the region largely dodged the bullet. However, the real test lies ahead as we prepare for fall transition. Northern Florida and Georgia growers were in the early stages of preparing for fall crops. The storm’s damage to early plantings might delay their starting line, pushing back the harvest schedule.
ProduceIQ Index: $1.17/pound, up +7 percentover prior week
Week #32, ending August 9th
Blue Book has teamed with ProduceIQ BB #:368175 to bring the ProduceIQ Index to its readers. The index provides a produce industry price benchmark using 40 top commodities to provide data for decision making.
Lime prices took the podium with a jaw-dropping 49% increase, setting a ten-year high. The unrelenting drizzle in Veracruz, Mexico, tightened the supply, shrinking the size of the fruit and limiting shelf life. Growers hope for an improvement in supply, but prices will likely remain on the higher end of the historical spectrum.
Meanwhile, avocados joined the race with a 21% price hike, defying the usual downward trend in avocado markets at this time of year. The USDA’s week #32 import volume is among the lowest in five years as the Flora Loca production slowly trickles in.
The demand for avocados and the heightened requirements for oil content are proving to be a challenging hurdle. Expect elevated prices and limited supply for at least the next two weeks.
When I said many Southeast summer growers dodged the bullet, I should have added a disclaimer for tomatoes. Round tomato markets have swift upward momentum and are apt to set records that will hold for years. Prices are up +28 percent over the previous week due to reduced yields from heavy rain in Tennessee and North Carolina and heat-related issues in California.
As we approach the final lap of the summer produce season and the school year looms, it also signals the start of the domestic pear production season in the U.S. Bartlett pears in California have begun production.
Still, the pace is slower than usual, and prices are high. Growers anticipate an average or below-average crop in terms of volume, citing unfavorable growing conditions—an event that might not break any records this year.
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ProduceIQ Index
The ProduceIQ Index is the fresh produce industry’s only shipping point price index. It represents the industry-wide price per pound at the location of packing for domestic produce and at the port of U.S. entry for imported produce.
ProduceIQ uses 40 top commodities to represent the industry. The Index weights each commodity dynamically, by season, as a function of the weekly 5-year rolling average Sales. Sales are calculated using the USDA’s Agricultural Marketing Service for movement and price data. The Index serves as a fair benchmark for industry price performance.
