In late February, shipments of mangos from Peru were winding down and the Mexican mango deal was getting off to a relatively slow start. Hence, light supplies are expected well into March before heavier shipments from Mexico can fill the pipeline.

At least that was the view of a couple of California importers conversant on the topic. “There is going to be a gap from now until at least March 15,” Isabel Freeland, vice president for Coast Tropical, based in San Diego, CA, said on Monday, Feb. 22.

She noted that even then the packingsheds might be going full bore, but it will take another week for those supplies to start filling retail shelves. Freeland said the first mango-producing regions in Mexico are fairly close in proximity to Nicaragua and Guatemala, which have also been “light and late” this year. “They are all in the same geographic area and have the same issues,” she said.

Sergio Palala, general manager of Splendid By Porvenir, in Burlingame, CA, had the same take on this year’s timing. “We will have low volume through March,” he said. “But come April, May and June, there should be lots of fruit.”

Palala said the general report is that Mexico will be down in volume about 10-15 percent this year because of weather issues, but he is not certain that is going to be the case. He said all the rain that was expected from El Niño has not materialized and so weather problems might have been overstated.

In addition, he noted that the bloom in the northern district of Sinaloa, where a strong percentage of Splendid’s volume is centered, was very good this year. Last year, he said, growers in the north had half a crop, but this year, if the weather continues to cooperate, yields could return to normal and supplies should be greater than 2015 during the second half of the Mexican deal in mid- to late summer.

Freeland is also anticipating a much better back end to the deal. “Last year there were some problems, but hopefully this year they will get a full crop,” she said.

She noted that late volume last year was down about 1 million cartons.

Of course, market price and retail promotions will play a huge role in the volume of mangos shipped into the United States this year, as they always do. Mangos are a very price elastic product. When they are marketed heavily at attractive price points, they fly off the shelves — especially in ethnic markets populated with Asian and Hispanic consumers who grew up on the fruit. Importers are saying there should be promotable volume from spring into summer.