In this installment of the ‘Agronometrics In Charts’ series, Valeria Concha studies the state of the US Strawberry market. Each week the series looks at a different horticultural commodity, focusing on a specific origin or topic visualizing the market factors that are driving change.

Currently, the supply of strawberries in the US market is in transition from California to Mexico and Florida. In the case of Florida, Matt Parke, farm manager of Parkesdale Farms in Plant City, Florida, estimates that 80% of the industry decided to begin plantings later this year, a week later than normal. But then some had plants ready to go before being sidelined by the storm when it struck Florida on Sept. 28. In October, Brianne Reichenbach, director of member services at the Florida Strawberry Growers Association, said that Florida producers were fortunate, just depending on where they were, topography wise, overall, there was minimal damage across the board. 

The Mexican strawberry export season has just started, said José Luis Bustamante, president of the National Association of Berry Exporters of Mexico (Aneberries), in addition, he said that they have had a promising start; they have enough fruit in Mexico to cover their orders. 

During week 49, the supply of strawberries in the US market was composed of almost 47% Mexican fruit, 30% from Florida, 14% from Southern California, 8.2% from Central California and the rest from Canada.

Source: USDA Market News via Agronometrics. (Agronometrics users can view this chart with live updates here)

The strawberry market, which has seen high prices, declined by 5 percent for the first time in months. Since week 39, prices have averaged higher than the same period last season. Strawberry markets typically peak during the early weeks of December and descend steadily as production in California winds down and Mexico and Florida pick up production. This year has seen abnormally high prices for an extended period due to an early end to the summer season. This is partly explained by the delay of the Florida season.

Although during week 48 there was a decrease in the average price for strawberries in the US market of approximately 5%, from $8,93 per kilo to $8,52 per kilo, on average, the values were 34,17% higher than those recorded in the same week of the previous season. In week 49, the average price decreased 17.13% from week 48.

Source: USDA Market News via Agronometrics. (Agronometrics users can view this chart with live updates here)

In our ‘In Charts’ series, we work to tell some of the stories that are moving the industry. Feel free to take a look at the other articles by clicking here.

All pricing for domestic US produce represents the spot market at Shipping Point (i.e. packing house/climate controlled warehouse, etc.). For imported fruit, the pricing data represents the spot market at Port of Entry.

You can keep track of the markets daily through Agronometrics, a data visualization tool built to help the industry make sense of the huge amounts of data that professionals need to access to make informed decisions. If you found the information and the charts from this article useful, feel free to visit us at www.agronometrics.com where you can easily access these same graphs, or explore the other 21 commodities we currently track.