Domestic peach volume filling the pipeline

Domestic peach season is just starting, and it’s largely headed to a retail market that shows signs of slowing down.

California peaches were expected to begin shipping heavier volume this week, joining Southeastern U.S. states in the market.

Peaches Volume Comparison California-New Jersey and South Carolina July 2019 through May 23, 2020

The largest U.S. regions for the last year were California with 265 million pounds, South Carolina with 66 million pounds and New Jersey with 18 million pounds.

We can observe that California supplies most of its volume from July to November and started again in late May, said Martha Montoya, CEO of Agtools Inc.

Blue Book has teamed with Agtools Inc., the data analytic service for the produce industry, to look at a handful of crops and how they’re adjusting in the market during the pandemic.

South Carolina had most of its volume from May through August.

South Carolina and California Shipping FOB US Prices for May

We see the FOB peach shipping prices from South Carolina on the conventional ½ bushel cartons for (2 ¾”, 2 1/2”, 2 3/8”, 2 ¼”) and Central California 25-pound cartons loose from May 15-21 had a range of $18-38, Montoya said.

Chile Peaches Fob Pricing for the Last Year

Form the graph above, Chile maintained peach prices from $17-21 for the several types of packages 2-layer tray packs and 9-kilogram containers loose, Montoya said.

Peaches Northeast USA Retail Prices for the Last 3 years

Northeast peach retail prices per pound for the Various Yellow Flesh and White Flesh Varieties have ranged from 50 cents to more than $4 per pound during the last three years and have similar patterns for 2017, 2018 and 2019, Montoya said. So far in 2020 there are many fewer white flesh varieties.