Chris Smotherman, sales manager for Arvin, CA-based Kern Ridge Growers, said the juicing craze continues to take hold, which is a great boon for the carrot industry.

While you can juice just about any produce item, there aren’t too many sold in volume and at a price point that actually makes juicing economical. But carrots are such an item.

“Many retailers carry bulk carrots (in 25 or 50 pound sacks) just for that reason,” Smotherman said.

In addition, he said smoothie retailers — such as Jamba Juice — use a lot of carrots in their operations helping to give the commodity a lift.

Another sales outlet that he said continues to grow is the foodservice arena. Single serve packages of carrots, ranging from one to four ounces, continue to note sales gains. Relatively new government nutritional guidelines for subsidized lunches have helped boost consumption of fruits and vegetables at the school level, and carrots have capitalized on that effort.

Smotherman said a foodservice carton that contains 100 single serve, three-ounce packages of carrots, is a very affordable way for school districts to meet the guidelines of increased produce offerings. He said the pricing on that pack amounts to less than 17 cents per serving.

With juicing utilization and foodservice packs leading the way, the Kern Ridge sales executive said carrots are showing a year over year sales growth. Kern Ridge offers both conventional and organic carrots in many different packing configurations.

Speaking in late February, Smotherman said production was still coming out of Bakersfield, CA, but it was starting to transition to the Imperil Valley.

“The market has been up for the last couple of months because we had lighter crop than we anticipated.”

He noted that the production in the Lancaster area, which is southeast of Bakersfield and north of Los Angeles, had much lower yields than normal. With the harvest moving to Imperial Valley, he is expecting supplies to increase to a more normal level.

However, Smotherman does not expect a drop in the f.o.b. price as he said growing carrots in the Imperial Valley is more expensive than the Kern County production because of the added transportation costs. Shippers truck that production up to their packing and processing facilities in Kern County, which is about 300 miles further north.