California Giant Berry Farms increases availability of year-round berries

California Giant Director of Retail Sales Nick Chappell recently visited the company’s Central Mexico operations covering more than 1,300 miles of ground to meet the growers.

California Giant is also touting its raspberry variety, the Adelita, which is bred from the bred from Planasa, as being competitive with other raspberries in the market.

The company also kicked off its newly implemented winter cross-docking collaboration earlier this month with a vegetable packer, Mann Packing in Yuma, Arizona. California Giant customers can now load their vegetable and berry orders while in the desert. Cross-docking refers a logistics practice of distributing goods between trucks with little-to-no storage or handling time.

California Giant reported a much needed rainfall swept California last week and brought the Salinas-Watsonville season to an end. Berry volume remains strong and steady for California Giant as Mexico, Florida and South America contribute to the fall-winter months with an abundance of fresh, quality berries.

“The duration of the Yuma season typically runs from late November through mid-March — during this timeframe we can approximate cross-docking 15,000-20,000 cartons of fruit per week, resulting in a much more efficient consolidation process,” said Tom Smith, California Giant Director of Foodservice. “Customers can reduce the number of stops on their trucks, therefore reducing time on the road and adding shelf life to the berries when they arrive to the consumer. We plan to return to the Salinas Valley in Spring 2019 to further this partnership as we continue to service our customers.”