George Kragie, the president of Western Fresh Marketing in Madeira, CA, and a longtime grower-shipper of figs in the Golden State, believes the popularity of the fruit has been helped tremendously in recent years by celebrity chefs.

“Chefs like Emeril Lagasse deserve a lot of credit. They have given us lots of publicity. And in one Iron Chef America episode, figs were one of the main ingredients. That all helps,” he said.

George KragieKragie, who splits time between his Madeira headquarters and an office in Michigan, was caught in his Michigan office on this May 2 day, though the California fig crop was already producing. He began shipping Brown Turkey figs from his California desert production on April 22, two weeks earlier than last year. But because the San Joaquin Valley crop is also trending early, Kragie expected there to be no gap between the production areas, though there often is.

“We have the breva crop right now in the desert and expect to get Black Mission figs out of Kern County (in the southern San Joaquin Valley) by May 19. Mother Nature has produced warm winter weather and we are early.”

He added that his crop in and around the Central San Joaquin Valley towns of Madeira and Chowchilla will come off in early June, a full two weeks earlier than 2013.

Kragie said the early desert crop in the marketplace is operating under a demand-exceeds-supply situation that is all about the numbers. “Historically we get about 5,000 pounds a day in the early weeks of the season. When we peak in late June and early July, we’ll be selling 40,000 pounds per day.”

He said the clamshell has become the container of choice for most retailers, though Western Fresh does continue to offer retail packs with the traditional one-pint basket.

Forecasting what trees will do several months from now is always difficult but that job has been made even harder by California’s drought. Kragie said most growers irrigate by well water, tapping into underground reservoirs. “We don’t think it will affect us this year but nobody knows for sure what will happen down the road. Everyone is on pins and needles,” he said, explaining that it is difficult to know how much water is left at the bottom of your own well.

“And if you do have a well problem, it’s almost impossible to get someone out to look at it because the well diggers are so busy this year,” he added.

He said most fig varieties, including the Black Mission and Brown Turkey varieties, are persistent yielders and a grower can be fairly confident of the size of his upcoming crop. But other varieties, such as the Calimyrna, which is a very popular fruit for eating out of hand, needs a pollinator to bring the fruit to maturity. That just isn’t as reliable and brings another facet of Mother Nature into the picture.

Still, Kragie is very bullish about this year’s California fig crop. Besides the television food shows, he said the California Fig Advisory Board has done an excellent job getting information about figs to food editors of magazines and newspapers, which keeps the increasingly popular little fruit top of mind for the foodies. And this year the Western Fresh marketing team is going to double its promotional efforts by attending more produce and food shows and establishing its own label by showing and sampling the fruit.

“Figs are definitely on an upward trend,” he said.