Stevco Inc., which is headquartered in Los Angeles and has branch offices in Nogales, AZ, and in Coachella and Bakersfield, CA, has California grapes over the course of a long season, starting in June with the Coachella deal and running through the San Joaquin Valley deal from early to late. But “the biggest part of Stevco’s program is the fall deal,” said Jared Lane, vice president of sales and marketing, in an interview with The Produce News Aug. 6.

“The majority of our production is harvested and shipped August 20th and later,” Mr. Lane said. “I’d say like 80 percent of our production is late.”

Stevco, which has seen steady growth of 10 percent or more over each of the last four years, has an increase again in 2012, and most of that growth is in three newer varieties. One of those, Scarlet Royal, is a mid-season red seedless grape harvested in August and September. The other two, Vintage Red and Autumn King, are both late season varieties and are expected to start harvest in October.

“We are going to have quite a bit of Vintage Red this year,” Mr. Lane said. This will be “our second year in production” for the variety.

Autumn King volume will be up “quite a bit” also, due to recently planted vineyards coming into production, he said.

Princess, a mid-season green seedless grape, was currently being harvested and was expected to be in peak production from Aug. 13 through Sept. 13, Mr. Lane said.

Crimson, a late-season red, was already showing “very nice quality” with big berry size, he said. “The bunch conformation is extremely nice and uniform.”

In fact, “all the varieties that I have seen,” both those that have been or are being harvested and those that would not be harvested until later in the season, “seem to have extremely good quality,” he said.

With the exception of Summer Royals, the varieties are “anywhere from 10 to 14 days” earlier than last year, he said. The Summer Royals, a black seedless variety, “seem to be a little later” and have had some problem coloring. He attributes that to the large crop on the vines which requires “more carbohydrates and nutrients to turn the fruit out.”

Red Globes are another major variety for Stevco. “We are still one of the bigger producers of Red Globes,” Mr. Lane said. “We started harvest July 30th in Maricopa, and I expect to harvest all the way through October. We produce over one million boxes of Red Globes, which are predominantly exported.”

Autumn Royal is “another variety that gets a lot of demand” in the export market, as is Scarlet Royal, he said. Other export varieties are Sweet Scarlet “that has a niche market due to taste, “ Vintage Red and Autumn King. “Some countries have developed more of a liking than others” for those varieties.

Stevco expects to continue shipping “through the new year, probably into January,” Mr. Lane said. “With all of this added production late in the season with these newer varieties, I expect the season to be longer than it has been in years past. I expect to see a lot bigger volumes of shipments later in the season.”