February 19, 2015
SPECIALTY POTATO REVIEW
There is so much happening in all our specialty potato growing areas we need to devote an entire issue to the updates. Although everything will remain business as normal these updates just might spark some new opportunities for you and for us. Useless tongue-in-cheek blather will resume next week. So sit back, relax and enjoy our technical blather.
FLORIDA
Fingerlings are available in four varieties and three colors. All fingerlings are in good supply with an abundance of yellows. Creamers are available from northern Florida at reasonable pricing and then we have the perfect (think manufactured) fingerlings from Immokalee that cost a fortune. Mid-April will bring the rounds, red, yellows and whites and by months end we will have a small crop of purple rounds. All this is expected to wind up by the end of May. FOB is out of Hastings in northern Florida or just yellow Fingerlings out of Tampa. We run trucks through southern Florida once a week for LTL delivery. We can also transfer to our forward distribution facility in PA for multiple delivery dates.
CALIFORNIA
Our yellow Fingerling program will finish up in about two weeks and we will bring in contracted product from Colorado without missing a beat. Expect prices to jump a bit when this happens. Jumbo Fingerlings are scarce and we only have enough for our regular takers until new crop begins. Our new crop begins April 15th for fingerlings. We have run our last reds for the winter season and next week we will run our last whites. April 15th will also see new crop on rounds with the exception of reds. June 1st will begin our organic Russet season and there is additional acreage planted this year. Organics on rounds will resume mid-April along red and pink Fingerlings, while organic yellow Fingerlings are available all year. We also have access to 50# assorted marble potatoes but they usually require 48 hour notice.
COLORADO
Yellow Fingerlings are abundant here and will remain so through June. Organic yellow Fingerlings are available through April. Rose Finn Fingerlings are available but limited and will be gone in a couple weeks. Organic Russets are the same way. We have 1.5 loads of Masquerade potatoes left. They are actually good potatoes, not the seed stock our grower accidently send out as samples. They are clean, vibrant and have no peepers. We are done with round reds, yellows and whites, but we can source them locally if requested. Product from Colorado is available FOB or at our forward distribution facilities in California and Pennsylvania.
NEW PRODUCE QUIZ- WHO AM I ???
I am a native to the Alps, but along with my 50 relatives have been grown throughout Europe and in the USA as well. We are all sweet members of the parsley family. I am totally consumable. From roots to seeds and stems to leaves there is always a use for us. I have both medicinal and culinary properties. Before dinner I am used to flavor the Vermouth in your perfect martini. During dinner my young shoots will be blanched and added to your salad, or perhaps the bread you are eating is made with dough from my ground roots. In Greenland my foliage is eaten as a vegetable. For dessert, you’ll find my crystallized stems on the cake or used as a sweetener in stewed rhubarb or custards. After dinner it’s my seeds that flavor your apéritif if you are drinking Chartreuse or Benedictine. Medicinally I am used as an anti-inflammatory and I out sell Alka-Seltzer in China. Though my name may imply it, I still haven’t earned my wings..
Answer To Last Quiz….CARDAMOM……Congrats To All Winners
Call 908-789-4700 –Lisa, Mark or Richard– Fax 908-789-4702
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Culinary Specialty Produce, Inc., 2015