Lime update
Weather is warm and clear in Martinez de la Torre. Lime inbounds increased this week with more 175s and larger on the manifests. There is still a large percentage of 200s and smaller, but as demand ramps up, small lime movement has dramatically increased. We expect the 175 and larger market to continue to become more aggressive. Memorial Day ads are being requested and the crop looks to yield great opportunities for promotion.
We are seeing a few quality issues in the limes, mainly oil spotting and some styler. We are asking our growers to “rest” the limes prior to packing so that issues can be graded out in Mexico. Veracruz has great color, but limes from the southern areas are showing some color issues. The European pull on the 10lb pack is very good for Mexico and this is affecting the price at the field level for good quality fruit. The net fruit from that pack is the majority of what is coming across in 40lbs and that is where we are seeing some issues. Despite the field level prices remaining steady or increasing, the US market will continue to get more aggressive, as we move into summer.
Mango Crop Update
We are in early week 20 now. Week 19 ended significantly down on volume versus week 18. The market this week seems to be cleaning up the excess of Guatemala fruit laying around and the excess inventory in McAllen and Nogales. We expect total volume entering the country to stay about where it is now for the next 3 weeks, then grow to peak volume for the summer in weeks 25 through 34. Ten (10) weeks of heavy summer volume is what we project.
Southern Sinaloa has low reserves on irrigation water. Fields that have not been getting enough water are starting to see a significant level of crop abortion. There is so much fruit in Southern Sinaloa that we do not expect any shortage, but it is something to keep an eye on. Fortunately the long term weather forecast predicts more rain in June than last year which should compensate somewhat for the lack of irrigation water. This also means the variation in quality between shippers could be significant depending on field practices managing through these issues.
Tommies and Ataulfos are currently the predominate varieties in the market. Hadens are ending and Kents are just starting in Michoacán. The Kents are pulling a premium at the field level, so we are differentiating them on our price sheet. Organic Round mangoes are going into a tight period for a couple of weeks until Nayarit and Sinaloa get started picking in week 22. When Organics are in the peak weeks (25-34) we can run large volume organic ads at a very reasonable premium over conventional with advanced confirmation. Please reach out if you are interested in running ads on Organic Kents or Tommies.
Haiti is having a low production year. We have revised the forecast down to reflect the new forecasts.
Stores on ad on conventional mangoes declined from 12,212 stores to 6,230 stores on ad for the week ending 5/18/18. Weighted average retail price is $0.91 per piece. See the USDA Data on Retail Mango Ads chart below for detailed data by geographic region of the country. Stores on ad with Organic mangoes rose from 933 stores to 1,606 stores this week. Average Organic price was at $1.41 per piece.
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