“Our very warm winter is creating some very large potential on the agricultural scene,” said Mary Ostlund, director of marketing for Brooks Tropicals, a leading grower-shipper of tropical fruits and vegetables headquartered in Homestead, FL.

“ ‘SlimCado’ avocados and starfruit flowers indicate good sized crops coming our way this year,” she said.

Brooks Tropicals handles a wide range of tropical fresh produce items.

Neal (Pal) Brooks, owner and president of Brooks Tropicals, checking out a south Florida starfruit grove.While papayas, avocados and starfruit are three major items for the company, it also carries Persian limes, Uniq Fruit, coconuts, water coconuts, aloe, boniato, calabaza, chayote, dragonfruit, eddo, ginger, guava, hot peppers, kumquats, lychees, malanga, mamey sapote, passion fruit, plantains, sugar cane, yams and yucca amog other items.

For more than 85 years the company has grown and/or imported tropicals from the Americas.

“Our specialty tropical produce items are grown, shipped, stored and food safety audited every step of the way,” Ms. Ostlund noted.

The company’s packing and distribution facilities in Belize and in Florida have continually achieved exceptional scores on food-safety audits conducted by Primus Labs, an independent third-party auditor.

Ms. Ostlund noted that the food-safety audits are performed on a regular basis and comprise an important part of Brooks Tropicals’ food-safety program.

“Comprehensive food safety programs have also been implemented in our growing and harvesting operations,” said Ms. Ostlund. “Our fields and harvesting crews received high scores on third-party audits.

“Our boniato, guava and aloe growers are giving us two thumbs up based on how their fields are looking,” said Ms. Ostlund. “Kumquat season ended a bit prematurely because of the warmer weather.”

Ms. Ostluncd pointed out that because south Florida is a subtropical climate, Brooks Tropicals grows its trademarked “SlimCado” avocados in the Southern Miami-Dade County region.

The company markets its avocados through an innovative concept. While the most common avocado in the United States is the Hass variety, Brooks Tropicals grows and packs a range of avocado varieties that the firm has dubbed “SlimCado.” These special avocado varieties share one common characteristic: They have up to half the fat and a third fewer calories than the leading California avocado.

“Our starfruit love the sandy soils of Pine Island on the west coast of the state,” said Ms. Ostlund. “Outside the subtropics come our northern Floridian kumquats. Otherwise for aloe, guava, mamey sapote and boniato, they prefer the southern Florida soils.”

Florida starfruit sales, she noted, are turning up the heat. These will come back into season in June and run through February.

“ ‘SlimCado’ sales this last season were as strong as ever,” said Ms. Ostlund. “New varieties like the Wheeling are helping to bridge the season gap between February and May.”