New Jersey competes nationally with berries and stone fruit

Despite wild weather, New Jersey harvested around 64 million pounds of peaches in 2018, which was an 8 million-pound increase from 2017. The state is the nation’s second largest producer of the stone fruit, trailing California.

Jersey peach season begins around July first and runs through mid-September. Sunny Valley International ships Jersey-grown yellow and white peaches, along with nectarines, under its Jersey Fruit and Just Picked labels, said Bob Von Rohr, director of marketing for Sunny Valley International, Inc., BB #:126304 Glassboro, NJ.

The company also receives yellow peaches from growers in Ridge Springs, SC, whose season starts and ends earlier than Jersey, from mid-May to mid-August.

Jersey is the nation’s sixth-largest producer of blueberries, but the berry is the state’s top crop, valued at almost $84 million. In 2017, 43.4 million pounds were harvested from 10,000 acres.

Sunny Valley International sells both conventional and organic Jersey blues. The season begins in June—after their import season finishes near the end of March—and runs through July, according to Von Rohr.

Outside of Jersey, Sunny Valley International supplied South Carolina strawberries for the first time this year with crops beginning mid-March and running through late May. The company also launched a lemon deal with imports from Argentina and Chile, running from May to September.

This is an excerpt from the most recent Produce Blueprints quarterly journal. Click here to read the full version.