There are many factors to be considered in selecting a strawberry variety for planting. Certainly yield per acre is an important consideration, for at today’s high input costs, low yields would make almost any farming venture economically unsustainable. Shelf life is also important, particularly for a strawberry crop grow in California for customers on the East Coast.

But at Santa Cruz Berry Farming Co. LLC, the first criterion is flavor, according to Fritz Koontz, managing partner.

Fritz KoontzThe company has moved more and more toward flavor as the primary consideration in selecting varieties to plant, for both conventionally grown and organically grown berries, Koontz told The Produce News March 5.

Yet it is not as easy as deciding that variety A is a great tasting berry and planting it exclusively, because each variety performs differently in different locations, under different conditions and at different times of the year. So how and where they are grown also influences what kind of eating experience the consumer has.

Santa Cruz Berry currently grows strawberries in the Santa Maria district and in the Watsonville district.

In Santa Maria, “we are pretty well split between the Monterey and San Andreas varieties” in conventional production, Koontz said. In Watsonville, “we have mostly Albion” for conventional strawberries.

The strawberry fields are situated in different locations within each district, some on earlier ground and some on later ground, “which gives us the right kind of quality” for a particular time during the season, he explained.

In its organic production Santa Cruz Berry is growing several different varieties, all of them sweet-flavored varieties, Koontz said. “We have Albion” as well as some proprietary varieties “that are very sweet tasting berries.”

In Watsonville, it is particularly important “to have strawberries that can arrive to the East Coast all summer, because in the summer, it is harder to take that ride,” he said. “So you have to have something that you know … has good shelf life. We plan out everything that way, so we have some acreage that is right next to the coast [where] it is nice and cool.” Berries grown there “do well in the late season like July and August” at a time when berries grown on warmer ground would not take the coast-to-coast ride as well.

Any company growing strawberries needs to have a good volume per acre to get a return on investment, Koontz said. “But some varieties that have a lot of volume per acre are not necessarily the best tasting. So we compromise a little bit on volume per acre” to assure that “all of our varieties are very sweet.”

In Watsonville, “nearly half of our acreage” is in organic strawberry production, “so we cater to [customers] who want something that their consumer is going to like,” he said.

“Santa Cruz is all about good quality, good tasting strawberries,” he reiterated. “We concentrate on flavor.”

As of early March, Santa Cruz was shipping most of its berries out of Santa Maria. The harvest started around mid-February but was disrupted by late February rains. “The rain was very much needed. We could actually use some more,” he said.

“Today we are starting to pick some pretty nice berries, and it looks like we are going to have some good supplies from this point going forward. We have some very large, good quality fruit” and expect to have “good numbers for all the holidays coming up — Easter, Mother’s Day, Memorial Day,” he said.

Santa Cruz berries are sold by Seven Seas Berry Sales in Watsonville, CA, with Alana Tagami, Paul Foster, Karol Adams and Ryan Saucedo on sales.

“We are trying to encourage more on-site farm visits with our customers, particularly in organics and educate people about what we do” and the company’s commitment to quality and flavor, Koontz said. “We are not a real big company. We are just trying to cater to people who want something really good.”