Mangos and melons are all the talk around the shop at Garden Fresh Distribution Service Inc. in Pompano Beach, FL.

As the company geared up to kick off its Guatemalan mango program in mid-March, as well as its watermelon season in April, company president Chip Jetter took some time out of his hectic day to discuss the deals with The Produce News. 

“One year it’s expensive, the next year it’s cheap — that’s just how it works!” Jetter said when asked about the mango market.

Chip Jetter, president of Garden Fresh Distribution Services at his company’s office in Pompano Beach, FL.He added that last year’s deal was “really, really expensive” due to the European markets and strikes in California ports, which led to more volume than usual coming into the Northeast ports. When this happens, the market is “very difficult to maintain,” he said.

Jetter is hoping for a better market this year, noting that the weather, whether good or bad, will certainly have an impact on that.

“Weather is very important,” he said. “The hotter, the better… within reason of course!” Jetter added that 80-90 degrees is ideal melon and mango-consuming weather.

While people in Florida have been enjoying such warm temperatures throughout most of the winter, Jetter said his company still felt the effects of the brutal cold the rest of the country experienced… perhaps just not in the physical sense.

“The past month has been tough due to weather,” Jetter said on March 11.

“It’s almost embarrassing hearing how cold it’s been elsewhere when here it’s been 82 and sunny,” he joked.

Growing weather has been great he went on to say, adding that there’s been “a lot to sell, but not a lot of people to sell to.”

“If it had been a normal winter, the markets would have been really strong for everything all year,” Jetter commented.

Despite the past rough month or so of business, Jetter is excited and ready for the company’s upcoming “busy season.”

“We jokingly call the period from the first of May through July 4 the ‘100-day war’ because it is when the demand is the strongest,” he told The Produce News in a previous interview.

Garden Fresh’s domestic season wraps up around late November when its offshore season begins. It’s Florida watermelon movement goes through south Florida, Plant City, and St. Augustine, and wraps up in Wauchula.