“We have a buyer stationed at the Vineland Auction during New Jersey’s production season,” said Mike Maxwell, president of Philadelphia-based Procacci Bros. “We purchase just about every product from every grower who comes through the auction house. New Jersey’s season is a very important part of Procacci’s locally grown program.”

The company’s Santa Sweets subsidiary is located in Cedarville, NJ. Maxwell said it is 1,600 acres, making it one of the larger tomato growers in the state.

VINELAND, NJ — M. D’Ottavio Produce Inc., a grower-shipper headquartered here in the heart of New Jersey’s fresh produce area and well known for its extensive line of fresh vegetables, announced that it has committed to a strong, full-fledged program of Jersey Fresh blueberries.

Tom Sheppard, president of Eastern Fresh Growers Inc., in Cedarville, NJ, told The Produce News that the company is at a higher level of food safety this year.

“We sell a lot of our leaf items to bagging companies, and they have very heavy food-safety requirements,” said Sheppard. “We have GAP’s [Good Agricultural Practices] Harmonized Food Safety Standard and PrimusGFS [Global Food Safety] certification, so we are well ahead of what companies today demand, and we intend on staying ahead in the future.”

The consensus among cherry growers in the Pacific Northwest is that the 2013 crop will fall within the 16-18 million box range. Growers from Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Montana and Utah met May 15 to discuss prospects for the coming season, agreeing that the crop size would not be as large as initially expected. The effects will be most directly felt in the marketplace during the early season.

As they move into June and July, Oxnard, CA-based Freska Produce International sales people should have their peak volume of Mexican mangos for the year, indicating that it will be a great time for promotions.

“Over the next few weeks, the harvest is moving north into Nayarit and Sinaloa” in Mexico, said Gary Clevenger, managing member and co-founder of this mango-centric importer, in mid-May.

So far it has been a fairly good mango season with good volume and good f.o.b. prices, said Larry Nienkerk, president of Splendid Products LLC in Burlingame, CA. Like others in the mango business, Nienkerk said the industry is moving more fruit at higher prices, which led to a new dynamic with regard to price points at retail.

“You can’t hit those same price points [at retail] anymore,” he said. “The days of three or four mangos for a $1 are gone.”