Stevco Inc., which is headquartered in Los Angeles and has branch offices in Nogales, AZ, and in Coachella and Bakersfield, CA, will once again have an increase in production of both Flame seedless grapes and Sugraone green seedless grapes during the early part of the season in California’s San Joaquin Valley, according to Jared Lane, vice president of sales and marketing.

The company had additional acreage in production in those varieties for the 2013 season. For 2014, Stevco will again “have a little bit added volume on both Sugraones and Flames,” Lane said May 29.

The anticipated start date is earlier than normal. “We plan to start Sugraones and Flames around the 30th of June” with production out of the Maricopa district, he said.

Stevco will also have increased volume in other varieties over the course of the season, but “most of our added volume is in the late deal,” Lane said. While there will be some increase for the early season this year, “there is not a lot of added volume” on the front end.

The Princess variety will start for Stevco about two weeks later. “We plan to start Princess around the 15th of July,” Lane said. That will be followed by the start of Red Globes about July 28. “They are also very early,” he said. “Globes are one of our biggest producers in the Maricopa region.”

Stevco packs its grapes in various styles according to customer preference, but “primarily this year we will be packing a pouch bag,” Lane said. “It seems to be the most well-accepted bag out of them all. We have both graphics and generic pouch bags. Some customers want the graphics and some don’t.” Stevco was currently shipping grapes both from Mexico and from the Coachella Valley of California, and for both of those programs, “it seems ... most of the customers want graphics, just not a lot.”

Lane expected a good transition from the Mexico and Coachella deals into the San Joaquin Valley. “I expect the Flames to clean up and the transition to be really smooth between the spring districts and the San Joaquin Valley,” he said.

With the green varieties, “demand has been good, and there are some ads set up, so I expect the demand to stay very good also,” he added.

In the San Joaquin Valley, “the biggest issue we are facing right now is water,” Lane said. Labor is also a major issue, particularly as “the minimum wage goes up July 1st.”

In the Maricopa district, “water has been in very low supply and also low in quality,” necessitating treatment before use. The cost of water has also gone up dramatically. “The water cost is normally about $270 an acre-foot. This year, we paid as high as $1,400.”

That combined with an increase in labor costs of $1 per hour will mean “quite a bit of added costs to our final product,” he said.

Grapes are labor-intensive, with the cost of production being 75 percent to 80 percent labor, he said.

“We are sending crews through each vineyard seven to nine times a year” to perform various cultural practices as needed, such as leafing, shoot-thinning, bunch-thinning and harvesting, “so when you raise the labor costs, it really affects us more than other crops.”

In its Maricopa operation, Stevco has installed some new fumigation chambers in the field “so we can gas the fruit right after it is harvested,” Lane said. The treatment with SO2 gas helps preserve the condition of the fruit for an extended time. The new field-level chambers employ techniques that have advantages over the more traditional method of S02 treatment in the cooler.

New on sales at Stevco this year is Mark David, who joined the company in April and “is currently working out of our L.A. office,” Lane said. “He will be spending part of his time in our Bakersfield office.” David was previously with Sun Pacific.

Dustin Clyde, son of company President David Clyde, will also be starting on the sales desk this year, he added. “Dustin has been running our quality control and our packinghouse.”

Also on sales are Mike Torczon and Andrew Brown.

“The thing that drives Stevco is our quality,” Lane said. “We have quality supplies from start to finish.”