The relationship between the Florida strawberry industry and retail has always been a resounding win-win. Growers know they’ll have a market for their crop; retailers know they’ll have promotable volumes of a popular crop across four (and sometimes five, as is the case this year) major holiday periods. That’s why some 80 percent to 90 percent of all Florida strawberries wind up in retail produce departments.

“For us, we probably send 90 percent of our berries to retail and the industry overall is probably at least 80 percent,” said Gary Wishnatzki of Wish Farms in Plant City, FL. The relationship between growers and retail has historically “been really solid. The new varieties that we have now especially have been faring really well at retail, the University of Florida has been breeding varieties that taste good and are coming earlier so we do fill an important market niche for retail and it’s been good relationships overall for the industry at large.”Florida strawberries on display at a Tampa, FL, Publix Jan. 11. Photo by Chip Carter

About 95 percent of all U.S. winter strawberry production comes from within a 30-mile radius of Plant City, FL. New varieties from the University of Florida released over the past few seasons have at least some Florida strawberries in stores before Thanksgiving. A few years back, the goal was to have fruit available by Christmas. Now the Florida season can cover Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year’s, Valentine’s Day and — as will almost certainly be the case this year — Easter.

“If we have really nice weather toward the end of the season and our quality is still there, we can cover Easter,” said Sue Harrell, director of marketing for the Florida Strawberry Growers Association in Dover, FL. “The timing of Easter [March 27] is going to help us this year so we’re hoping we can make it through the end of March at least.”

FSGA is definitely making hay while the sun shines this year. A partnership with the state Fresh from Florida program and Publix Supermarkets will be offering thousands of dollar-off coupons at retail from the end of January through March at no cost to the association. And FSGA has contracted for in-store audio advertising that promotes Florida berries in Southeastern Ahold, Kroger, Southeast Grocers and Winn-Dixie supermarkets through March 1.

While the growers association still has plenty of point-of-sale merchandising materials available, it is becoming increasingly difficult to get retailers to commit to campaigns like that, Harrell said.

“We went with audio just because you’re limited in what you can put in a store now, they don’t put signage and things like that up, or if you send it, you don’t know if it really went up or how long it stayed up,” Harrell said. “This audio is a sure thing.”

“Demand’s been very strong this season,” Wishnatzki said. “Due to unusually warm weather in the fall, we experienced an early start to the season but it’s been a bit of a double-edged sword. While we had some good early production at good prices, warm weather pushed the plant a little too hard early on and we’re in somewhat uncharted waters right now with not having ever experienced a plant that’s gone through as much heat at the beginning of a season. We’re hitting, unfortunately, a fairly long gap from that first push of berries to the next — we’re in that now [Jan. 11] and expect to be in that for several more weeks because the heat brought on so much fruit in December.

“We’ve hit the wall in terms of production for the short-term, but we expect, hopefully by Valentine’s Day, to see some increases. But it’s not going to be the normal volume retailers have seen. It looks like availability will be somewhat limited for close to a month — Valentine’s Day and beyond will just start to see the increases in product but it’s going to be a bit of an unusual season this year. We’ll have another late push, but not until late February, indications are.”

But an El Nino year and reduced plantings in California should provide a window for Florida growers “that’s going to continue well into the spring, but we could see higher prices than what is historical. Our overall production will probably not equal last year which will be OK as long as we can maintain market prices that reflect that and all indications are we will,” Wishnatzki said.