High processed prices for Chilean blueberries in late December were threatening fresh-market supplies, according to Scott Hulsey, vice president of procurement for Gourmet Trading Co. in Los Angeles.

He told The Produce News Dec. 29 that Gourmet Trading had enjoyed company record high volume loadings over the previous two weeks. The high blueberry volume on the water represented "a nice groove right now" for the company. “It is a trend that is expected to continue through the next two or three weeks,” he said.

"In January I look for supermarkets to begin promoting Chilean grapes, and the fruit is excellent this year," William Kopke, vice president of Wm. H. Kopke Jr. Inc. in Lake Success, NY, said Dec. 29. “So far quality is excellent. We are very pleased that way.”

Asked to be more specific about when “promotable volumes” would begin, Mr. Kopke replied that retailers “will start sometimes promoting without asking us. All of a sudden there will be an ad in [the] paper at a high retail.” But generally, “I guess it will begin by mid-January.”

"The word we get out of Chile is that the fruit is going to come. There is a lot to come" despite a slow start, said Mark Greenberg, chief operating officer and senior vice president in charge of procurement of Fisher Capespan. Mr. Greenberg works from the company's Montreal office.

Industry giant Dole is now in its third season of growing strawberries in Florida. The company doubled its acreage in the state last season, and production is expected to increase again this year.

"We have acreage near Plant City and other locations about a half-hour south, growing a mix of proprietary, Radiance, Festival and Treasure strawberries," said Vincent Lopes, vice president of Monterey, CA-based Dole Berry Co.

As the new year rang in, Joel Silverman, owner of Paradise Produce Distributors in Lakeland, FL, was hoping a flood of strawberries would follow.

December was pretty much a washout due to several nights of sub-freezing weather spread over three weeks. At a time when Florida strawberry growers would normally be harvesting thousands of acres, they were instead picking hundreds.

For 107 years, Driscoll Strawberry Associates Inc. has specialized in berries and nothing but.

In 1904, friends Joseph (Ed) Reiter and R.O. Driscoll decided to work together, growing Sweet Briar strawberries in California's Panjaro Valley. A half-century later, the business they founded became Driscoll Strawberry Associates. Flash forward another 50 years and Watsonville, CA-based Driscoll, still family owned and operated, has become one of the world’s great berry brands.