California strawberry growers are beginning to switch more fields over to processing in the Oxnard area. Volume so far to date as reported by the Processing Strawberry Board of California is close to where it was at this same time last year. Most of the volume of freezer grade strawberry so far has been generated out of Mexico. Juice grade volume has not come in as heavy as expected given the recent rain events. There is still considerable interest in this grade of fruit by California processors. The volume packed so far this season of juice grade fruit has not been enough to satisfy demand for this product. This could be the case for most of the rest of this year unless there is some event that creates more volume. Currently the fresh market has been taking the volume growers have been sending to it. Growers in the state have been shipping more than 1 million fresh trays per day over the past week. Heavy volumes look to be the case for the next few weeks. Some growers have now started switching to the processing market as there is not enough demand to sustain all of this volume.
