Veteran potato salesman Ken Gad of Cambridge Farms, which is based in South Easton, MA, admits that the current potato marketing situation is very difficult to judge. I'm going right down the middle, he said.  I usually have a strong opinion about what is happening and what is going to happen, but this year I just can’t put my finger on it.

The week following Thanksgiving typically marks a drop in demand for most fruits and vegetables as the heavy holiday pull subsides. This year, the super high prices for so many commodities prior to the holiday left warehouses empty and there has been no change in the supply-demand curve.

A week before Thanksgiving, veteran California vegetable salesman Mark McBride noted the high prices were unprecedented. “If anybody tells you they’ve seen this before, they are lying,” said the Coastline Family Farms sales executive. “I’ve never seen anything like this before, not even close.”

In his 35 years as a tomato specialist, Joe Bernardi of Bernardi & Associates has never seen the price of red round tomatoes soar as high as they currently are.  “The prices are historically high,” he said on Nov. 28. “Today a 25 pound box of rounds was being quoted at $50.95. A typical market at this time of year would be $16 to $20.”

Bob Davis, vice president of Maine Farmers Exchange, said the weather in the Northeast during the Maine potato growing season was perfect. “I call it ‘pushbutton’ weather,” he said. “Every time we needed a little rain, we got it. During May and June, it would dry out a bit and then we would get the perfect amount of rain.”

Davis said yields were good on all varieties. “The crop is not as big as last year and the yields weren’t quite as good, but they are above average,” he said.

By all accounts it has been an extraordinary summer for vegetable producers with FOB prices on some items rising to levels never seen before, but Tony Incaviglia of GR Fresh expects a much more normal winter season as supply and demand get back in sync.

Port Laredo, which sits about 90 miles northeast of the Rio Grande Valley on the Mexico-U.S. border, is touting its services as a strategic crossing point for produce heading from or to Mexico.