Crown Jewels Produce LLC in Fresno, CA, has been involved in the Sonora, Mexico, grape deal since it’s present ownership acquired the company in 1999, according to Atomic Torosian, a partner in the enterprise.

“We have been working with the same grape growers since we started,” he told The Produce News April 1.

Torosian, himself, has been involved with Sonora grapes for almost twice that long. “This is my 29th year working in the grape deal out of Mexico,” he said. “I’ve been in the produce business a lot longer than that, but that long in Mexican grapes.”

This year, “we are going to be starting Mexican grapes probably as early as we have ever started,” he said. “We are looking to start on Perlettes, which is our first variety, on the first day of May.” Those will be followed about May 5 or 6 with Flames.

Crown Jewels ships the majority of its Mexican grapes out of the Agri Packing cooler in Nogales.

Crown Jewels will not have the earliest grapes out of Mexico. The company’s grapes are grown in three districts: the Pesqueira region north of Hermosillo, the coastal area west of Hermosillo and the Caborca area. The newest commercial grape growing district in Mexico is Guaymas, a coastal region south of Hermosillo. Production in Guaymas is still limited, with only a few growers involved. Early varieties of both red and green grapes will probably start in Guaymas the last week of April, Torosian said. “We don’t have any grapes in Guaymas at the present time. We will in the next two years.”

Torosian said he has heard some Sugraones may start out of Mexico and also out of Coachella as early as the first week in May, but for Crown Jewels, the Sugraones will be a bit later. “We don’t have any early Sugs,” he said. “We won’t start until May 20.”

The Sugraone crop appears to be a little light this year, he added. “We anticipate the crop being down 10 to 15 percent on Sugraones, maybe more in some cases.” However, he expected “a more normal crop on Flames and Perlettes” as well as on Red Globes and black seedless varieties.

The way the crop is shaping up, “I think the last week of April and the whole month of May [the industry] should ship about 35 percent of the crop, and the month of June and the first week of July we will get the rest,” he said.

The start of the grape harvest in California’s San Joaquin Valley also appeared to be running early, and “it looks like there is going to be a little bit of an overlap right now” with the end of the Sonora deal, Torosian said. Some early Flames and some early green varieties out of the southern part of the San Joaquin Valley could come on as early as the last week in June. “We are trying to slow it down a little bit with some of our grapes in the San Joaquin Valley,” he said.

From the start of the Mexican season on through, “we are working on grape programs with some retailers,” Torosian said.

“The style of pack that we generally pack is the stand-up pouch bag,” he said. “That seems to be more of the norm these days.” In addition, the company puts up some club packs and some clamshells.

Crown Jewels has three sales people on staff in Nogales. They are Jesus Gonzales, Juan Medina and Robbie Mathias Jr. On sales in the Fresno office, along with Torosian, are his partner, Rob Mathias, as well as Steve Highley, Jeff Kramm and Sara Hergisheimer.