Good Morning everyone. This weekend we got to see some more typical Florida weather. I actually got to feel sunshine on my skin, and not run the defrost in my truck. However, the strawberry supply is not back to normal, and frankly the entire industry is below where we normally are. These unexpected events should cause one of the biggest outputs in March that we have ever seen. This season seems to have been one of extremes, and March will not differ. The fruit should be extremely sweet and abundant. Both of these qualities should bode well with consumers in the form of lower priced excellent tasting product. One of our growers Carl Grooms made the following comment, “When you bite into these, you are going to notice a big difference”. Many growers are worried that if the weather warms up just right that there may be so much fruit, that they will not be able to pick and pack all of it. That leaves the possibility of leaving fruit on the plant to rot. Every farm has a break-even cost per flat that they have to reach in order to make a little money. If the market price is below this they will simply be forced to leave fruit on the plant.
Carl Grooms went onto say that the large supermarket chains should really promote strawberries and let consumers know that sweet fruit is on its way. If the retailers do a great job of promoting the fruit and taking advantage of all the possible demand this could turn the season around for a lot of local growers. So, ask your local supermarket manager to ask their buyer to purchase Wish Farms berries for all of their stores. We will have the berries so come and get ‘em!
Source: Tampa Tribune Article