It’s springtime in the California’s Coachella Valley, which means typical daytime temperatures topping 90 degrees and fields of peppers brimming in volume and color.

Mike Aiton, director of marketing for Prime Time International, Coachella, CA, told The Produce News in mid-April that the field-grown green bell peppers, green beans and chili peppers were already in production and by the time this is published in early May all of the colored peppers will be in harvesting, packing and shipping mode. In addition, Prime Time will be in to its other summer crops of sweet corn and watermelon. “We are a seasonal player in corn and watermelon with production in May and June,” he said. “For those two items we gear up for Memorial Day.”

In recent years, Prime Time has developed a more robust chili pepper program and it now offers many different varieties of hot chilies, popular in Mexican and other ethnic cooking. But the company remains focused on colored peppers, as it has been since its inception more than 20 years ago. The Coachella Valley is the center of its production and delivers those peppers about nine months of the year, either through green house or field production. Aiton said from July through September, with 100-plus degrees the norm for seemingly day and night, “it’s just too hot and becomes too expensive to keep the greenhouses cool.”

Hence Prime Time has a field pepper operation going in the spring and fall complimented by the greenhouse production that runs from the fall through the winter and deep into spring.

In May, Aiton said there should be some very good promotional opportunities on peppers for the retail community. “It’s been a tough winter for buyers,” he said. “For a long period of time there was a scarcity of product and high prices.”

The Prime Time veteran said Mexico had weather issues that limited their production. Combined that with other supply issues and “pepper prices have been abnormally high.”

Along with good supplies of the regular block-type peppers, Aiton said the mini-peppers should also be in very good supply in May. “That continues to be a very good item for us and growing in popularity.”

Prime Time offers the multi-colored mini pepper packs in both one and two pound bags and he said some retailers are starting to feature the item in bulk, which allows consumers to design their own color mix.

As far as the company is concerned, staff has welcomed two new members recently with the addition of Alex Sanchez as the general manager of field operations and Luis Ramirez, who is the new food-safety manager. Both men come to their positions with extensive experience in the agricultural arena.