News
“It may take until August for all factories to reach full capacity”
For week four ending July 24th, PTAB is estimating 701,571 metric tonnes (mT) (773,350 short tons, sT) will have been delivered to the factories and another 807,613 mT (890,241 sT) are estimated to be harvested in week five which ends July 31st.
Provisional total (2,156,041 mT) at this date would still be 1.8% lower than the average quantity processed during past three seasons at this time (2,195,364 mT).
According to a previous report published by Westcon Foods, there are early concerns about the 2021 crop as it has been reported field yields, on average, are not meeting plan. Further, it is also expected that it may take until August for all factories to reach full capacity.
The latest report (July 26) explains that, even though California increased production by approximately 106,000 mT (117,000 sT) from the previous week, the industry needs to get the weekly deliveries at about 908,000 mT (1 million sT) for August and most of September in order to reach the 10.5 million mT (11.6 million sT) estimate.
The 2021 California Organic processing tomato deliveries for the third week ending July 17th were 119,384 mT (131,611 sT). The total tons YTD for week ending July 17th is 240,520 mT (265,128 sT), or 11% of the total delivered quantities. This is the most organic tonnage run at this point, compared to other seasons, due to earlier than average starts (late June) by some processors.
PTAB figures for week ending July 17 state that 26,883 loads were delivered to date (4,272 more loads delivered in 2021 than in 2020), of which 99% were delivered in the Southern region, with YTD solids reaching 5.13 compared to 5.37 for the same time period in the 2020 season, or 0.24 lower.
Taking the current figures into consideration, quantities being harvested will bring the provisional processed total to more than 20% of the official target of the season (10.5 million mT or 11.6 million sT).
Source: PTAB, Westcon Foods
