Stevco Inc. in Bakersfield, CA, has expanded its grape program for the 2013 season in the San Joaquin Valley with new plantings coming into production in many varieties.

The program “has been expanded across the board,” said Jared Lane, vice president of sales and marketing. From Sugraones and Flames on the early end to Autumn Kings on the late end, “we have had expansion at every stage of the season, and I think we are going to be able to supply a lot more high-quality fruit to our clientele.”

Most of the expansion has come in late-season varieties, most notably Autumn King and Vintage Red, which will have “the biggest growth in box volume,” Lane said, but Flames, Scarlet Royals and Sugraones are also up. “We do have growth in acreage throughout the season.”

The company expects a volume of more than 720,000 boxes this year.

One hundred percent of the fruit marketed by Stevco is grown by Lucich Farms “which is owned and managed by Stevco, so sit keeps us all under one umbrella,” he said.

“We’ve had an earlier than normal start” on the harvest this season and “movement has outpaced last season,” Lane said July 11. “It looks like the later varieties will be early also, but it’s too early to tell.”

Overall, quality looks good, he said. “I toured all the ranches day before yesterday, and I was very pleased with the quality of the crop that we have out there right now. I think we are going to have a good season. We have good volume and good quality, and I think that will do well.”

Stevco is also involved in the spring grape crops out of both Sonora, Mexico, and California’s Coachella Valley. The transition from those deals to the San Joaquin Valley has gone “a lot better than expected,” Lane said. “Both of the spring shipping districts have cleaned up a lot quicker than anticipated. I attribute that to the amount of promotions on both California grapes and Mexican grapes. Every chain store was on promotion at one time” for either green grapes or red grapes.”

Currently, Stevco was shipping Sugraones, Flames and Summer Royals from the San Joaquin Valley. “Quality on the Flames and Sugraones is very even and very consistent,” with high sugars brought on by hot weather and the harvest has also been consistent. “We haven’t had many peaks and valleys,” Lane said.

Stevco expected to begin harvesting the Princess green seedless variety around July 18. “We will start Red Globes around the 29th of July,” Lane said. Scarlet Royals will start around the first of August followed by Sweet Scarlets in mid-August.

The Scarlet Royal vineyards have a particularly large crop this year, he said. That variety is “the one that set the heaviest amount of bunches. The vines are very vigorous. They can carry a little bit larger crop than normal.”

Stevco packs “a large range” of different pack styles, including “any type of fixed weight bag or clamshell,” Lane said. This year “we see a big jump in the amount of demand for the handle bag,” but different customers want the bag done in different ways, which has made it “difficult to manage [our] inventory of materials.