Chinese garlic in the U.S. market has been a source of frustration for California garlic growers for a number of years, particularly when prices for Chinese garlic in the U.S. market has been below the cost of domestic production.

But Jim Provost, founder and managing partner of I Love Produce in Kelton, PA, which markets garlic from both China and California, as well as other producing areas, foresees a time when California garlic can be exported to China.

“We are waiting for the day and the year that Jim Provostit is going to make sense to ship garlic to China,” Mr. Provost said. “It will happen eventually, because there are a lot of people to feed there. At some time in the future it will make sense. We’ll see when that is.”

Meanwhile, I Love Produce is exporting various other produce commodities to China. “We continue to grow in the products we are shipping to China,” he said. “We are shipping a lot of commodities there,” such as grapes, apples, cherries and citrus

“With all of the things we are shipping there, we can see the trend,” he said. “China is now our largest agricultural customer for the United States, and I Love Produce is taking advantage of that.”

In addition to fresh fruit, “we are starting to do consumer products” to China as well, he said. “We are looking at value added products and natural products. It is something new that we are launching.... We are looking at an assortment of things including dairy products and organic products.”

Meanwhile, however, the garlic is coming the other direction. “I have received my first new crop shipments of both California and Chinese garlic,” Mr. Provost said. By comparison to the Chinese, “the California garlic is bigger this year, and I would say overall a nicer quality crop.”

The Chinese have “a 30 percent reduction in yield” in their garlic crop, he said, and that is “a direct result” of smaller-sized garlic. “Typically, in the Chinese garlic, you see a lot of export-quality garlic in the super jumbo and colossal range,” he continued. “This year, you are going to see more in the jumbo, maybe extra jumbo, on the top end of their size spectrum.” As a result, “it will be a little easier to sell California garlic this year, regardless of price.”

In the peeled form, size is not as much of a factor, he said.