The California strawberry market has been impacted by large volumes of fruit along with poor weather conditions in some areas over the past two weeks. The large volume of fresh market fruit has depressed prices ahead of the typical Mother’s Day sales push. The week we are currently in will determine what growers end up doing with processing grade fruit next week. So far to date, the processing market for freezer grade fruit has been slower than any of the previous four years. The juice grade market has received much of the processing grade fruit so far this year. Some of this is due to the wet weather two weeks ago. The expectation moving forward is for the fresh market to increase in volume until the middle of next week. After the Mother’s Day market window closes there could be a large movement of fruit to processing grade channels. The first official day of price posting will be Monday the 8th of May. This should coincide with the potential volume of fruit that may come to the freezers next week.
