Summer heat is expected to cause some reduction in onion sizing for Ontario Produce, headquartered in Ontario, OR. Sales Manager Bob Komoto said weather presented its own set of challenges during 2012. “Early in the season after planting, there was hail and wind that thinned several fields and force some replanting,” he told The Produce News on Sept. 4. “The early part of summer was ideal. But in the latter part of July and early August we had seven to 10 days of over 100-degree weather. That aged the crop and probably will cause some size reductions.”

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By Sept. 1 Owyhee Produce in Nyssa, OR, had shipped 350 loads of onions, and Sales Agent Robin Froerer said the early July start was the earliest in the company’s history.

Ms. Froerer said the early onions were smaller than average, but she noted that size mix remains good.

As for the ratio of yellows to reds and whites, the grower-shipper maintains its heavy-to-yellow percentage.

“No big changes,” she said.

Describing the 2012 Treasure Valley Spanish Sweet onion crop as “in general looking good,” Garry Bybee, chief executive officer of Fiesta Farms in Nyssa, OR, said, “We are running 900 loads ahead of last year at this time.”

The new-crop onions going out early were in part green-tipped, and the veteran onion grower-shipper said, “We as a region may have done ourselves a little harm running this much this early. Prices have dropped. But the good part is we could be short on the tail end.”

This summer, Central Produce Distributors, headquartered in Payette, ID, joined Certified Onions Inc. “This season, we’ll be fully ramped up and going,” General Manager Ray Burzota told The Produce News on Sept. 6.

East Coast Fresh Cuts, the fresh cut division of Coastal Sunbelt Produce, is located in Savage, MD, a few miles from the Maryland Wholesale Produce Market.

Dave Zeleznik, vice president of East Coast Fresh Cuts, told The Produce News that the company, which in the past catered predominantly to the foodservice sector, is now focusing just as strongly on the retail side.