Monsoon rains just before harvest in 2012 and 2013 caused severe losses to the date crop at Hadley’s Date Gardens Inc. in Thermal, CA. If it had happened a third year in succession, “I don’t know if we would have made it out of that,” said Albert Keck, president. “We were down for the count.”

Just as the 2015 Medjool harvest began, rain once again threatened the crop, as weather patterns bought tropical storms up from southern Mexico into the California and Arizona deserts. There were locally heavy rains, but fortunately they missed Hadley’s date groves, with most of the rainfall occurring further east.

“Just three miles from our farm, they got three inches of water in one hour” and some “pretty bad flooding,” he said. “We hardly got a drop.”

When The Produce News talked to Keck Oct. 13, the Medjool harvest was nearly finished and the Deglet Noor harvest was under way. “We’ve got a good crop. Quality is excellent this year” on the Medjools and “The yield was good,” he said.

A date palm in California's Coachella Valley. (Photo courtesy of Hadley Date Gardens)“We are about a quarter of the way through our Deglet Noor harvest, and the quality is looking really good,” Keck continued. “Yield is probably slightly below average,” but it will be “a good year.”

Hadley has new plantings coming into production as does the California date industry as a whole, Keck said. “So I expect to see our volume kick up in the next few years. Barring any major weather losses, the trend should be for improving yields as the new orchards start to mature.”

It has been a struggle the last two years, with the short crops, “to try to keep our main customers going,” Keck said. “It has been very difficult. But this year will be a good year for everybody.”

This year, Hadley “will have better ability to supply the market and better quality than we have seen in many years,” he continued.

Retailers and industrial users are both important customer categories for Hadley’s products.

“Most of our retail line is in the form of clear plastic tubs,” Keck said. “We offer the full spectrum of the trade.” That consists mainly of “retail packages of whole and pitted dates — Medjools, Deglet Noors and Zahidis” as well as date coconut rolls and date almond rolls.

Hadley also supplies retailers with “a full complement of the seasonal retail display” materials needed to help boost their sales.

In addition to the retail packs, “we also offer the full complement of industrial products for food manufacturers” including companies that make such products as trail mixes and energy bars.

“This year we will have a better ability to supply that market and better quality than we have seen in many years,” he said. Hadley does the processing of its products for the industrial market, converting most of its byproduct-grade dates into forms customers need and shipping in bulk to food manufacturing firms, he added.

“Our diced pieces are actually in the retail line as well, so [consumers] can buy those. They are more convenient for cooking or making trail mixes at home,” Keck said.

The use of dates as an ingredient “is a strong market,” Keck continued. “Dates have definitely proven very popular in that segment, and they are very versatile and very healthy, so they are gaining popularity and wider acceptance.”

Hadley’s date sales are “pretty much all domestic,” he said. “We are enjoying increasing popularity with the American consumer culture,” and that is not just because dates are good but because there is “a healthy awareness developing in American consumers.” Dates “fit very nicely” into that.

Although dates are increasingly popular throughout the year, the holiday period “is still very important, in fact, the most important marketing window for the crop,” Keck said. Partly because it is a fall-harvested crop, “culturally it is associated with a lot of rich holiday traditions.”

At Hadley Date Gardens, “we survived two rough years, and we are still in business and going at it, doing our best growing and packing,” Keck said.

“We are involved in all facets of the industry. We are very grateful that we came out of those rough years and we’ve got a good crop now. It had to come at this time. We were down for the count. This is going to be good for the growers, the packers and our customers, and we are very happy.”