JMB foresees challenging season
JMB foresees challenging season
Leo Rolandelli, the longtime produce veteran and president of Jacobs, Malcolm & Burtt, based in San Francisco, predicted in late July that this could be a difficult year for Peruvian asparagus.
A year ago, lower prices ended the Mexican asparagus deal a bit early and caused the Bay Area wholesaler to start importing asparagus from Peru a bit earlier than usual.
Leo RolandelliThis year, high prices may result in a later switch than usual for that crop. Asparagus is one of the top commodities that JMB carries to service its Northern California customers 12 months of the year, but it still has to be careful about the cost side of the equation.
Mr. Rolandelli said that processor demand has given the Peruvian asparagus shippers what he considers to be an unrealistic view of the price they want to get from their U.S. importers.
“Right now there are a lot of unknowns going on down there,” he said. “It has been difficult to tie anybody down. I don’t know how it is going to end up.”
JMB has imported asparagus from Peru for more than 20 years. The firm does not own its own farms but rather it works with suppliers on a contract basis. Though it offers asparagus in a variety of value-added packs as well, Mr. Rolandelli said the bulk of the sales are in the traditional 11-pound carton.
JMB is steadfast in its determination to only sell asparagus shipped to the United States by air. While some shift to asparagus that arrives by ship during the peak months, JMB does not. “There’s no comparison in quality,” he said. “It’s a world of difference.”
JMB flies all of its asparagus supplies into Miami and trucks them to California. He said that the company usually makes the switch to Peruvian product in mid-September and sticks with that point of origin for about three months, which mirrors the peak of the Peruvian deal. During the fall, Peru ships as much as 800,000 cartons of product to the United States on a weekly basis.
