Valhalla Sales & Marketing Inc. in Kingsburg, CA, is a grower, shipper and packer of a wide assortment of fruit, including stone fruit. In the stone fruit category, the company’s production is heavy in apricots and plums, according to David Stone, president and chief executive officer.

“I’m not heavy” in peaches and nectarines, he said. “We have some” throughout the season, “but that is not one of the major factors of our company.”

At one time, Valhalla had a fair amount of white flesh peaches and nectarines, but “we have backed off on that,” he said. “A lot of the growers have made changes to their variety selection. We still have some on the front of the deal, but not as much as we have had in the past, by any means.”

Valhalla’s growers “over the years are keeping the varieties they made money on and making changes on the ones they didn’t,” he said.

In plums, “we start early with Flavorosas and Early Queens and go all the way through, ending up with our Angelinos at the tail end of the season,” Stone said.

“On apricots, we start with Castlebrites” and continue through a series of varieties, ending up with “the Patterson, which is probably one of the best eating, most durable apricots still in the industry.” It is a fairly old variety, but the reason it has been around so long is “because it is good and durable and ships well and eats well,” he said.

In between those two, Valhalla has about 15 other apricot varieties, among them Goldbar and Robata.

With regard to pack styles, “we are pretty much the same” as last year, except that “we are going to try a pouch bag in our apricot program this year,” Stone said. That will only be done with certain varieties and may even be limited “only to the Pattersons the first year” just to see how the fruit arrives.

Apricots are “a pretty delicate item,” he continued. “Over the years, we have tried numerous different pack styles” from a soft net bag to a basket with a net over the top. “When you start bouncing apricots across the country stacked on top of each other, it is tough to make arrival on the other end.” So any time the company makes a departure from the standard 24-pound volume fill or from its two-layer or three-layer tray packs, “we are going to be pretty cautious. We do experiments to make sure it arrives before we jump into it with both feet and make a change.”

Joining the Valhalla sales team this season is Michelle Leotine, who has been the company’s office manager for the past 10 years. “She is going to start selling and taking on some increased responsibilities,” Stone said. Also on sales, along with Stone, is Mitch Ritchie.