Stevco’s 2014 Mexican grape program will mirror previous two years
Stevco’s 2014 Mexican grape program will mirror previous two years
This year, the Mexican grape program for Los Angeles-based Stevco Inc., “is probably going to mirror the last couple of years. We will probably be around a million six [1.6 million boxes] in volume.” With minor exceptions, “Variety makeup will stay the same,” said Jared Lane, vice president of sales and marketing, in the company’s Bakersfield, CA, branch.
It appeared that the season would be “extremely early, 12 to 14 days early,” said Lane March 31. “As it looks right now, Stevco should start Perlettes May 1 and Flames May 5.”
The size of the crop appears to be normal, he said. “We don’t feel it will be a very huge crop,” he continued. With “two weeks more of marketing time, we expect the market to stay healthy throughout the season. There should be very good opportunities for Memorial Day promotions because we will have the volume this year,” as opposed to most years when volume was not quite sufficient for Memorial Day promotions.
On the whole, the company’s variety mix will be unchanged from the past couple of years. “We will have Perlettes, Sugraones, Princess and Thompsons on the green side. We have torn out some of our old Sugraones” and replanted with younger vines. “Those blocks are going to produce better quality,” he said.
In the red seedless grape category, “we have the flames,” he said. As a company, “we are heavy to Flames.” In addition this year, “we are playing with a little bit of later red grapes that we are testing this season.”
In the black seedless category, Stevco has Summer Royals and the Unknown variety.
“We have production in all three [major] growing areas — Pesqueira, La Costa and Caborca — with red, green and black from start to finish. That is one of our big selling points,” Lane said.
Members of the Stevco sales staff travel down to Nogales, AZ, for the entire Mexican grape season, he said. “We live down in Nogales and we sell the seasons, so we are on ground to see the fruit itself.”
New on sales at Stevco this year is Mark David, who was previously with Sun Pacific.
This year, the company plans to pack all of its bagged grapes in pouch bags this season, Lane said.
“We pretty much pack whatever the customer needs, whether it be the two, three, four or five-pound clamshells, RPCs, or the normal carton” with pouch bags. “We pretty much pack everything.”
