With the Bell pepper market of all colors continuing to show great strength at retail, Mecca, CA-based Pasha Marketing has increased its acreage of that commodity this season and dropped a couple of others.

“We’ve opted out of green beans and seedless watermelons this year,” said Franz De Klotz, who wears the title of managing partner along with Nick Bozick. Pasha Marketing is the vegetable arm of Richard Bagdasarian Inc.

Franz De Klotz, Pasha Marketing LLC managing partner, in a Coachella Valley pepper field.Mr. De Klotz said it just wasn’t profitable to produce green beans and watermelons so the company has devoted that acreage to peppers and eggplants, its only other vegetable crop this season. “We started harvesting green peppers on April 15,” he said. The company expected to start harvesting eggplant the week of April 22, and red and yellow peppers were expected to get going around May 1.

Besides the increased acreage, this year Pasha will offer both conventional and organic packs of everything it grows, including all three pepper colors and eggplant. Mr. De Klotz, who also wears the title of vice president of marketing for the grape division under the “Richard Bagdasarian Inc.” banner, said organic grapes will also be part of the mix.

For the second season in a row, Pasha has also inked a deal to sell the peppers of Johnston Farms, which operates out of Kern County in the Southern San Joaquin Valley of California. “We will have peppers from Coachella Valley into June and then we will transition to Johnston Farms, which will take us through mid-July.”

Though the company is only a seasonal player with three months of production on a crop that has become a year-round blockbuster for retailers, Mr. De Klotz said, “we have not found our seasonality to be a negative. Our customers have created a coalition of growers that take them through the season. After we get out of the deal, they move on up to Live Oak (farther north in the San Joaquin Valley) and work with some growers up there.”

The Pasha Marketing executive said it is all about relationships in the produce industry. He has been dealing with many of the same customers for years and they have no problems with the fact that Pasha has eggplant for only about six weeks and Bell peppers for about 12 weeks before they are finished for the year. He said it is the same type of long-term relationship that led to the signing of the representation deal with Johnston Farms. “Our relationship goes way back to the Sun World days” when Mr. De Klotz worked there, he said. “In fact, Johnston Farms were early growers on the Le Rouge Royale peppers (the first red peppers sold in the United States) for us back then. They did a great job then and they do a great job now.”

Like peppers, he said eggplant is a very fast growing commodity at retail. So with two vegetable categories in great demand, he believes the firm is perfectly positioned. “Primarily we sell from the Great Lakes west, but we can get a good pull from the East Coast if the demand is there. It all depends on how the crops do in Georgia and Florida.”

When Coachella Valley peppers are popping, he said, Georgia and Florida are also typically producing various pepper varieties. Mr. De Klotz said early indications were that there would be some added sales to the East Coast this year. “As we’re getting started, demand is strong,” he said.