Apart from cherries, for which the company is best known, Grower Direct Marketing LLC in Stockton, CA, exclusive sales agent for O-G Packing, markets only one type of stone fruit — an exceptionally large proprietary early-season apricot appropriately named “Monster Cot.”

According to Don Walters, a partner in Grower Direct, “Monster Cot” is not a single apricot variety but a series of proprietary varieties with similar characteristics, notably good color, good flavor and exceptionally large size. The company has been growing the “Monster Cots” for the last six seasons, and volume has been increasing each year as young plantings continue to mature.

This year, the ‘Monster Cots’ were expected to get started around April 29, “and will go through the first week of June,” Mr. Walters said. They are grown in the Arvin area in the southern San Joaquin Valley and are “some of the earliest cots in California.”

This year’s crop “looks like a good full crop [and] a very clean crop,” he said. “We have been able to avoid any kind of severe weather — so far, anyway,” such as hail or freezing temperatures that have caused problems in some past seasons. Occasionally the Arvin area can get “some pretty rough weather” during the apricot-growing season, but “this year we haven’t had any freeze. We haven’t had any hail on them. So it looks like it will be a clean crop and right on time.”

Volume is expected to peak this year between around May 6 and May 24, with sufficient numbers to provide promotional opportunities.

“We will be offering a new pack this year” for the “Monster Cots,” Mr. Wilson said. “It is a gusseted bag with high graphics and a handle.” Also called a pouch bag, “it should be a really good pack for retailers to promote cots,” he said. The pouch bags will be packed in Euro cartons. “We think that is really going to be a nice tool to have for promoting apricots.”

The company will also pack the “Monster Cots” in a two-layer tray pack.

“At the same time we will be doing apricots, we will be packing and shipping fresh blueberries in various pack styles,” Mr. Wilson said. “We will have blueberries throughout the California season. We start in the south and we finish in Northern California,” with the season running from about the first of May to the middle of June.

This year, Grower Direct will have increased early-season volume in blueberries because of young plantings that are maturing.

In its cherry program, Grower Direct handles cherries grown from all California growing districts — from Arvin in the south to Stockton-Lodi-Linden in the north. All of the cherries are brought to the O-G facility for packing, Mr. Walters said.

Varieties in the southern districts, comprising about 35 percent of the company’s volume, consist mainly of Brooks, Tulares and Corals. The other 65 percent of the company’s cherry volume is in the northern district, where “we have mostly Bings, some Corals and Rainiers.”

This year, “we will see some growth in our volume in the Rainiers,” he said.