Thanks to favourable growing conditions, the first table grapes of the 2012 Mexican season arrived at the US border in early May, well ahead of last year.
As of 24 May, crossings of Mexican grapes through the port of Nogales were up by 50 per cent over 2011 levels. Perlette led in volume with nearly 2m cartons imported, followed by Flame Seedless at just over 1.3m cartons. The Sugraone deal was just getting under way with 20,500 cartons shipped.
The Sonora table grape industry announced that it expected to export just over 16.5m 8.62 kg-cartons to the US market during the 2012 season – an 11 per cent increase over last year’s volume, or about 8.5 per cent above the average for the last five seasons.
The competing Coachella Valley deal in California is also off to a fast start with reports of good fruit quality as well. Industry sources predict that shipments will top 6m cartons – or about 10 per cent above 2011’s volume of 5.5m carton level. Flame Seedless is the largest in volume to date at 740,000 cartons shipped – a 35 per cent increase over the same point in time during 2011 – followed by Sugraone at nearly 160,000 cartons.
The initial word regarding the San Joaquin Valley table grape crop is that shipments are likely to commence during the first week of July with heavy production by the third week of the month. The California Table Grape Commission expects total state industry exceed 100m cartons for the first time in its history.
For a full report, see Asiafruit June 2012.
