Because of the marketing situation going into the 2016 California grape season, veteran grape marketer Andy Economou expecteds it to be a very good season, though, he noted, the consumer always has the last word.

“The consumer is the boss,” he said, reasoning that even the best marketing conditions won’t yield great results without the consumer’s active and proactive participation.

Economou, who is the general manager of Philadelphia, PA-based Unifrutti of America has been selling table grapes from many different districts for many years. Since 1993, his firm has been participating in the Coachella Valley deal, largely handling sales for the output from Tudor Ranch Inc., in Mecca, CA. Unifrutti also brings Mexican grapes into the United States during this same time frame and then transfers his sales expertise to some operations in the San Joaquin Valley once the grape harvest shifts to California’s Central Valley.

Illustrating the power of the consumer, Economou remembers a time when he could hardly give away a pallet of red seedless grapes. “When the Flames started we’d sell 19 pallets of green grapes for every pallet of red grapes. Now it has turned the other way. We sell 15 pallets of red grapes to maybe five pallets of greens.”

Speaking on April 21, Economou said rain in Chile had ended that deal with no new grapes expected to be shipped after that date. He said ships loaded with fruit will continue to arrive at U.S. ports until late April, but the deal was definitely winding down. He added that Mexico appears to have a fairly light crop.

Like others, Economou said the Coachella Valley deal should start in earnest around the second week of May with a few very early vineyards producing fruit by the end of April. The crop, he said, was sizing nicely and he anticipated that his deal would have close to one million cartons to sell this year from the Coachella area. With the early May start, he said volume will be heavy — especially in the Flame Seedless variety -— in time for the Memorial Day Weekend pull. He believes there will be strong promotional opportunities at that juncture. However, he said the green grapes are going to lag behind a bit and it won’t be until after May 20 that Unifrutti’s green volume really gets going.