March 27, 2009

Sweet Potatoes

Market Snapshot*

The U.S. Department of Agriculture was reporting the following prices on 40-pound cartons of U.S. No. 1 Grade sweet potatoes:

Atwater/Livingston, Calif.: Orange, $19-20; red, $17-20; white, $22-24.

Eastern North Carolina: Orange, $15-15.50.

Louisiana: Orange, mostly $17-17.25.

Mississippi: Orange, mostly $17.

* Prices from the USDA's Fruit & Vegetable Market News, March 23.

The Shipping Scene

Easter is not exactly a major sweet potato occasion, but retailers do enjoy a sales bump for the holiday, and grower-shippers say there should be plenty of good-quality tubers available this year.

Not all varieties will be in stock at Garcia Farms Produce in Livingston, Calif., however.

The company should have ample supplies of the beauregard and covington varieties on hand until the new crop comes on in July, but the firm has been out of oriental sweet potatoes for a month, has only a few white-flesh left and will be out of red dianes by mid-April, said sales manager Frank Mesa.

"Demand for the year has been far better than expected," he said.

Also, wind damage during the growing season last year may have reduced yields somewhat.

Mesa said sweet potatoes are becoming a staple item that consumers buy year-round. "Some of our customers' orders changed very little week-to-week from the fall to the present," he said.

Quality has been "better than average this year," he said, and plenty of the small and medium sizes that consumers want are available. Prices have been strong, too.

"There haven't been any bargain basement (prices) for quite a few years," Mesa said.

In North Carolina, supplies of sweet potatoes also are ample right now, said Ronnie Mercer, salesman at Wayne C. Bailey Produce Co. in Chadbourn.

The company has beauregard and covington varieties left as well as some o'henry sweet potatoes and a new variety called stokes purple, which is purple outside and white inside. "It cooks up very moist and very sweet and has a lot of color to it," Mercer said.

Mercer expects the company to see some added sales for Easter, but he said business has been fairly strong all year. "Our movement hasn't fallen off any during this economic recession," he said.

Foodservice sales have dropped slightly, but retail business is up, Mercer said.

Sizes and quality have been good, thanks to excellent growing weather last year. Not every part of the state enjoyed outstanding conditions, but Mercer said he was not aware of any portion of the state where yields were hampered by the weather.

He expected prices of North Carolina sweet potatoes to rise slightly later this spring as Louisiana and Mississippi run out of product.

The year has been rough for sweet potato growers in the central and northeast parts of Louisiana, said Ryan Quebedeaux, part owner of Harold Quebedeaux Produce Inc. in Mansura.

The region was hit by two hurricanes last year, and the company was able to salvage only 25% to 30% of its crop. What remains is of good quality, though, Quebedeaux said.

The firm should have beauregards until late spring or early summer, and some growers planted the evangeline variety.

Movement was "slow but steady," Quebedeaux said, adding that prices of Louisiana sweet potatoes were higher than those in surrounding states because of tight supplies.

Nationwide, sweet potato volume should be up slightly from last year to 1.83 billion pounds, said Charles Walker, executive secretary for the United States Sweet Potato Council Inc., Columbus, S.C.

The North Carolina Sweet Potato Commission in Benson is conducting supermarket promotions in the Northeast with point-of-purchase materials and recipe tear-off pads, said Sue Johnson-Langdon, executive director.

She recently returned from a foodservice show in Germany and said she was excited about the potential for sales of North Carolina sweet potatoes there.

(By Tom Burfield, Western correspondent for The Packer. The Packer and Red Book Credit Services are part of food360º, a division of Vance Publishing Corp., Lincolnshire, Ill.)

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