TRAVER, CA — In early July 2011, Louis Scattaglia, managing partner of Scattaglia Growers & Shippers LLC, here, told The Produce News, “We’ve increased our acreage about 40 percent across the board, all varieties.” Much of that acreage will be in production this year, with “the balance coming on next year.”

The company’s table grape production did, indeed, increase last year as a result of the new plantings, and it will increase again this year, as expected.

There will also be continued growth in future seasons. “SGS will continue to expand our grape volume,” Mr. Scattaglia said July 11.

Louis Scattaglia, managing partner of Traver, CA-based Scattaglia Growers & Shippers LLC.Much of the current year’s growth is in newer varieties, and that is expected to continue to be the case in future years. SGS will continue “looking at new varieties going forward” and is “constantly experimenting with new varieties,” he said.

“As we acquire some that we feel will have the [desired] flavor and size and aesthetic appearance, genetically, we will plant those. We have always been at the forefront of new varieties, and we will continue to be so.”

This year, the SGS program “looks to be about a week earlier than last year,” he said. “We start off with a red seedless variety, the Flame seedless, and also at the same time, start with Summer Royal black seedless.” He expected those to start around July 15 to 17.

“From that point we continue with our Princess green seedless. Those varieties will carry us through about the first week in September.”

At that time, “we will start transitioning into our Crimson red seedless.” In the green seedless category the program will transition into the Luisco variety and then, around the first of October, the Autumn King. “We will see significant increases in volumes on both of those varieties, as they are just coming into full production now,” Mr. Scattaglia said.

Additionally, “we have some increased production coming up in our Scarlet Royal red seedless category” which will start around the first week or two of October, he said.

The company will also have more acreage coming on line this year in its proprietary SGS Red variety. That will start in late October or early November, he said. The harvest will probably continue through the first week of December, “and we will be shipping grapes through the first week of January, it appears.”

Another variety offered by SGS is Autumn Royal. That starts around the first of October and was expected to continue through the Thanksgiving holiday, Mr. Scattaglia said.

From the start of the harvest, SGS will have “a steady supply of grapes [through] the early season, as we always do,” he said. “But we are [primarily] a late grape shipper, and our increases and our heavy volume are from mid-September through the first of January.”

Based on early indications “to this point,” he said, “we are in general very happy with the weather conditions thus far and condition and quality of the crop. In addition, sizing looks very good. Of course we have a long way to go. It is the beginning of harvest, and we have essentially five to six months ahead of us when anything can happen. But at this point in time, we are very excited about the crop.”

All SGS vineyards are GlobalGAP certified, Mr. Scattaglia said. “It is very important to us not only that we produce high-quality fruit but also have that backing of food safety that goes along with it. It is just as important to us and certainly just as important to all of our customers. They request that we go to these levels, and we are more than happy to do so. It has been a hallmark of our company from day one.”

SGS continues, “as always,” to pack its grapes in “a full array of packaging styles,” he said. “We are more than happy to come up with new packaging ideas for our loyal customers, whether it be the traditional two-pound bag, various weights of clamshell,” or the new fixed-weight gusseted “pouch bags which have become very popular during the last two to three years.”

SGS offers grapes in a “Disney” clamshell “along with the regular SGS clamshell label,” he said.

“We are quite happy to provide our customers with whatever packaging they need,” he added.

In conjunction with “all of SGS’s mid-season and late-season additions in volume,” it was necessary “to follow up with increased infrastructure” to handle the added volume, Mr. Scattaglia said.

Over the last year or so, “we have increased our state-of-the-art storage capabilities.”