Coast Tropical initiates mango imports from Guatemala
Coast Tropical initiates mango imports from Guatemala
During the months of March and April, Coast Tropical in San Diego is expected to import about 650,000 cartons of Guatemalan mangos into the United States, significantly augmenting its Mexican production.
Vice President Isabel Freeland told The Produce News on Thursday, Feb. 25 that the first mangos from Guatemala are expected to hit the sea on March 6 and arrive in Miami about a week later. The company has partnered with several established growers, and constructed a new, highly automated packingshed to handle the volume. “We are very excited about it,” she said. “It will significantly increase our mango production during this time of the year.”
She said it is possible some of the Guatemalan fruit will be shipped to the West Coast, but Coast Tropical was waiting to see how the contract settlement between the ports and the dockworkers play out. She noted that containers were stacked up and there was quite a backlog looming after the agreement was reached on Feb. 20. “It’s going to take a while to clean everything up so we will wait and see how quickly that happens,” she said.
The company is also sourcing from Nicaragua at this time of the year so Freeland said Coast will have plenty of fruit available for promotion from mid-March through the summer. Though retail promotions have been scarce so far this year because of a strong mango market, the Coast vice president expects that to change in short order. “We are seeing some excitement from retailers looking for something to promote.”
She added that the snow and cold weather in the Northeast and throughout the eastern half of the country has slowed demand for mangos, but she is hopeful warmer temperatures will elicit stronger sales and good promotions.
Also new for Coast this year is a distribution warehouse currently being built in a San Francisco Bay Area city to facilitate shipments to that market. Freeland said Coast does a lot of Bay Area business and previously used a warehouse that it rented. She said the addition of its own facility will allow for better service for its customers in Northern California. Freeland said that facility should be ready for operation by the end of spring.