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to stay at the forefront of this shift by working with our breeding partner to develop new vari- eties that deliver consumers a fantastic eating experience. We also grow and market other new and conventional varieties.”
Giumarra already ships an unusual variety of table grapes through the spring season.
“For Mexico, our varieties include Early Sweet, which is a new, very early green seedless variety and a strong competitor to Perlette,” says Wilson. “For many years, Perlette has been the early green variety
produced in the spring. ARRA Passion Fire is a new, proprietary red seedless grape that is a strong competitor to traditional Flame seedless. ARRA Sugar Drop is a mid-to-late season, exceptionally sweet green seedless grape. It’s one of our newest varieties coming to market. Summer Royal black seedless is an early producer, along with our Nature’s Partner Mystic Pearl brand premium black seedless grapes. We also offer conventional varieties Flame and Sugraone.”
Although the window following Chile is
overwhelmingly supplied out of Mexico and the Coachella Valley, South African growers also are putting their toes in the water.
“South Africa is only testing the U.S. market on grapes currently with very low volumes being shipped,” says Ron Van Heerden, director of South Africa procure- ment for Capespan North America, St. Laurent, Canada. “It should not have an effect on the market.”
The later stages of the South African grape harvest would reach a window relatively early in the spring.
“For the 2017 season, the last fruit arrived towards the end of March,” says Van Heerden. “We are able to have fruit arrive through April if we ship until the end of the production season. For U.S. sales, South African volume would peak from January through March and then start to decline until the end of April. The prevalent variety at source for this marketing window is Crimson Seedless, but it is not being shipped to the United States. We are of the opinion the new seedless propriety varieties might work better in this marketing window and will continue to look for opportunities to grow the demand.”
The emergence of South Africa as a major player, should it happen, would add to the geographic diversity of spring grapes.
“For the North American market, Mexico and California are the main suppliers during the spring season, May and June,” says Wilson. “There are typically some grapes from Chile in the market in May, as well. June is almost entirely supplied by Mexico and California. Last season, Mexico produced a little more than 21 million cartons of table grapes, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture Market News. Mexico has several areas of production that allow it to start ahead of California in the spring.”
There is already greater diversity in sourcing grapes for the important winter window after the California harvest is finished.
“In the winter, there are many countries exporting to the United States: Brazil, Peru, Chile and South Africa, to name a few,” says Giumarra’s Wilson. “The winter season starts late October and extends into May. Chile generally ships around 50 million cartons, plus or minus a few million depending on the season, to the United States. Peru’s volume to North America has been rising every year. Recently, Chile’s volume has also started to increase.” pb
56 / APRIL 2018 / PRODUCE BUSINESS