- by Tim Linden | August 19, 2020
There is no doubt that 2020 is a crazy year with the pandemic impacting every corner of the world and every product in the supermarket, with produce sales continuing to impress.
“Sales this season have been phenomenal, continuing to sell as quickly as we can harvest and movement has been very good both overseas and in North American retail,” said Brett Dixon, president of Top Brass Marketing Inc., based in Bakersfield, CA. “Most of our chains have been eager to get into some quality grapes as opposed to what they had been getting prior to the local season. Lack of arrival issues always works best for everyone involved. We have had more promotion inquiries this season than we had in the last five years. It appears that quality fresh grapes with good shelf life are moving well at retail and continues to do so. Once retailers were able to move the older product from Mexico off their shelves, our movement just took off and hasn’t stopped.”
The longtime California grape salesman said production during the first month of the San Joaquin Valley grape deal produced light yields on green varieties and he predicted that will be the case for much of the season. But as the season was moving into the more voluminous late summer time frame with the newer high-yielding varieties, Dixon said supplies should pick up.
Top Brass offers several of the so-called candy varieties developed by an independent breeding program, such as Candy Hearts, Candy Drops and Candy Crunch. He added that through August and into September, the company will also feature Sweet Globes, Great Green, Scarlet Royals, and Krissy’s. “Its Feeling like we are just getting into the heart of the season at this point,” he said in early August, noting that the Candy Snap variety was just finishing up.
He reiterated that green grape varieties will continue to be tight and difficult to promote due to lighter yields, and the red varieties will continue to offer the most promotional opportunities. He also mentioned that several organic grape varieties in Top Brass’s arsenal have had lower yields this season but there are still promotional volumes.
“Organics appear to be off in yield this season. We are doing Scarlet Royals, Krissy, Allison, Sugraone, Thompson and Great Green and have pretty much seen a decline in yield across the board this year,” he said. “However, the industry as a whole has plenty of organics to fill those voids.”
Top Brass typically offers table grapes for sale through the first week of December and Dixon expects that will be the same this season.
He also offered commentary on some of the outside threats to this year’s grape harvest including COVID-19, transportation issues and labor shortages. Concerning the coronavirus, he said Top Brass put all the safety protocols into place very early on and have had limited impact in regard to operational concerns. He said temperatures are taken daily and masks required by all employees.
Transportation is another potential problem that has not caused any problems. “One would have thought this could have been a potential concern, but so far transportation has not been of concern,” he said. “Whether that is overseas by air, by boat or domestically by truck.”
Top Brass has also seen no labor issues this season. “Labor has thankfully been plentiful and we have had a good long history of having the same crews that want to come back year after year to work in our fields,” he said, adding that it just makes it much easier to work in fields where the money has been invested to create crops that do not inherently have problems to work around.
The Link LonkAugust 20, 2020 at 12:15AM
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Top Brass buoyed by promotional opportunities for grapes - The Produce News
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