Sales agents at longtime Colorado broker Ringer & Son are reporting mixed conditions for some of the state’s most popular produce crops. Sweet corn will come in late but should bring volume similar to past years; peaches are down considerably due to early freezes; and Rocky Ford cantaloupe is up 20 to 30 percent over 2012.

According to Ringer President Joshua Johnson, growers Mike Ahlberg and sons, Zach and Scott, will start harvesting famed Olathe-area sweet corn from 600-plus acres near Delta, CO, around July 20, and loads will continue to go out through mid-September.

Stellar Distributing will start shipping California chestnuts Sept. 1, as it have for the past 15 years, according to Kurt Cappeluti, sales manager. Stellar will ship the California chestnuts through September.

New to Stellar’s repertoire are Italian chestnuts, which will start Sept. 20. The Italian chestnuts will extend Stellar’s shipments to mid-January, which will allow for holiday promotions.

Stellar ships around 2.5 million nine-kilo boxes of kiwis a year, domestic and imported. Cappeluti said kiwi buyers have been asking about chestnuts, too.

The New Jersey Peach Promotion Council is now making it easy for buyers to find when and where to buy locally grown Jersey Fresh peaches, by means of an upgraded social media package that integrates its website, Facebook, and Twitter.

PHILADELPHIA — The infrastructure along the Delaware River is uniquely positioned to handle imports of international fruits and vegetables. With major facilities from Wilmington, DE, upriver to Philadelphia and southern New Jersey, a network of expediters, transporters, fumigators and cold storage facilities exist that tie a bow on the import package.

Exports of California table grapes in 2012 reached a record 358,370 metric tons (41,582,237 19-pound box equivalents), according to a written statement The Produce News received July 12 from the international marketing team at the California Table Grape Commission.

Stevco Inc. in Bakersfield, CA, has expanded its grape program for the 2013 season in the San Joaquin Valley with new plantings coming into production in many varieties.

The program “has been expanded across the board,” said Jared Lane, vice president of sales and marketing. From Sugraones and Flames on the early end to Autumn Kings on the late end, “we have had expansion at every stage of the season, and I think we are going to be able to supply a lot more high-quality fruit to our clientele.”