Market Notes
October 8, 2015
BABY VEG SHORTAGE
The heavy rains combined with all around crappy weather have greatly affected the availability of French Beans, Peeled Carrots, Rainbow Carrots, Baby Squash, Snow Peas and Snap Peas. These items are expected to be tight for the next two to three weeks. Domestic Baby Squash, French Beans, Peeled Carrots and Baby Tomatoes have been pest infected from the extreme heat, drought situations and severe temperature fluctuations. All products have to be very carefully tested. Product from Mexico is also showing signs of heat stress that has limited their volume as well. All in all it’s going to be tough through October. Our best success has been from sourcing in the LA market where there are numerous options including domestic, Central American, and South American. Even with all these geographic options every box has to be carefully inspected to assure good arrival. Prices are up and quality is down. While we cannot control price, we can make sure what we ship will make good arrival regardless of price. Please stay ahead on your orders. We will update this weekly until this categorical epidemic subsides.
REDIFINE FINGER LIME
So, we have failed in trying to make the Australian Fingerlime one word. From now on we will join the uninteresting majority and do it right. Now that we are spelling Finger Lime correctly we also want to let you know that we also have a new retail pack for our organic Finger Limes and it is beautiful. In the past we had a third party packing this citrus caviar, but now the Finger Limes are being packed and shipped from the source. The new pack has lots of advantages. The 50 gram clam shells have a natural label with suggested recipes on the inside. This is also premium fruit meaning large pieces. An individual case contains 12/50 gram packs and we are working on a master box to Fed-Ex or fly eight to ten cases at a pop. We also have truck access to LA for truck consolidation. This product is picked and packed fresh so forty-eight hours are required prior to shipping. The fresh pick and the vented packing make this product fine for five day over the road trucking. Please contact your culinary rep for photos, complete specifications, and pricing. You are going to like this pack. It is a natural for cross merchandising for seafood, carne asada, chicken, bakery, beer and wine, and deli. Oh yeah, would do well in the produce department too.
THE 2015 NEW YORK PRODUCE SHOW
Can you handle another six weeks of self-promoting blather? We certainly hope so. Its culmination is Booth 319. Write it down, just do it! We know the PMA Fresh Summit is just two weeks away and that’s where your focus is, but let us pose this question. Why do in three days what you can accomplish in one? Think about it. On December 2, 2015 at the Javitz Center in NYC, on top of body of Louie the Loop, you can meet our entire staff, the new Midnight Moon, the almost new Masquerade, the brand new Finger Lime retail pack along with a wonderful selection of specialty produce. We are betting you will see at least one item you have never seen before. Once again we will be offering exciting samples as we once again attempt to feed the room. Please stop by and give Midnight Moon a try.
NEW PRODUCE QUIZ – – WHO AM I
A native of southeastern China, I am also very common in Vietnam and central Asia. My Chinese name means eight points. Late in the sixteenth century, Europeans actually used me widely as bait in mousetraps, leading to my latin name “Illicium,” meaning lure or bait. I grow on an evergreen tree of the magnolia family and my pretty reddish-brown woody fruit is picked prior to ripening, then sun-dried. Each of my fruits’ points contains an oval seed with longitudinal ridges. Chewing my seeds will freshen your breath with a licorice-like flavor. In addition to being used in oriental cuisine, I flavor liqueurs, chewing gum, and confections. I’m very familiar in a famous spice mixture — ground-up with four other spices, specifically fagara, cinnamon or cassia, fennel seeds and cloves, along with cardamom, dried ginger or licorice root — where my pungent, sweet flavor dominates the powder. I am said to be diuretic, carminative, stomachic, antispasmodic, digestive, and expectorant, and a stimulant, so use me to tone up the heart, stimulate digestion, combat flatulence, and soothe coughs and asthma. My essential oil contains anethole, a substance also found in fennel (whose seeds taste similar to mine). Thousands of years old, I am, perhaps best recognized for my shape, but there’s never been a sidewalk ceremony for me.
Answer To Last Quiz….WINTER MELON……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