FRESNO, CA — Crown Jewels Produce, here, is expecting to see another year of expansion in its fresh grape shipments from California. “Our grape program keeps growing and growing,” said Atomic Torosian, one of the company owners. “We are probably going to be up about 20 percent from last year.”

The Chuck Olsen Co. in Visalia, CA, will start off the early San Joaquin Valley grape season in July and into the first part of August with Flame seedless, Princess and Summer Royal grapes and probably a few Thompsons, said Vice President Jeff Olsen.

“I expect we are going to start somewhere around July 7,” Mr. Olsen said May 24. That is about 10 days earlier than last year. That should happen if “the weather stays decent,” he added. “The sooner we start, the better it will be.”

For Stevco Inc., which is headquartered in Los Angeles and has branch offices in Nogales, AZ, and in Coachella and Bakersfield, CA, the grape harvest in California’s San Joaquin Valley will start in the Maricopa district, located southwest of Bakersfield at the southern end of the valley.

Keith Andrew, a salesman at Delano, CA-based Columbine Vineyards told The Produce News May 30 that it looks like the company “will be harvesting earlier than last year.”

The start of the grape season in the San Joaquin Valley is expected to come earlier this year than it did last year by at least week and a half for Sun World International LLC in Bakersfield, CA.

Pete Giotta, Brady Johnston, Christy Salazar, Sean Stockton and Michael Astorga of Sundale Sales Inc. (Photo courtesy of Sundale Sales Inc.)Sundale Sales Inc.