RIO RICO, AZ — This December, Fresh Farms, located here, will be starting with Culiacan eggplant, fresh pickles, green beans and green Bell peppers, according to Jerry Havel, director of sales and marketing.

In a mid-November interview, Havel said, “I think there will be a tight squash market to Christmas and a decent cuke market through Christmas.”

RIO RICO, AZ — The Nogales shipping season is expanding, Jorge Quintero Jr., the managing partner of Grower Alliance LLC, here, said. “We started earlier than ever” this summer, Quintero noted.

Grower Alliance had an early watermelon deal start Sept. 10, despite two unusual hurricanes struck West Mexico and largely washed out the watermelons. Nonetheless, the start date was 15 days earlier than normal.

At one time the Nogales deal began in November but now Culiacan and Sonora are increasingly shipping in October with products like melons, squash and cucumbers.

The big thing produce buyers are going to notice out of Mexico over the next few weeks is a shortage of the items that usually come out the La Paz area at the southern tip of the Baja peninsula during the early part of the Mexican vegetable season, Joe Bernardi, president of Bernardi & Associates in Nogales, AZ, said Nov. 17.

That is because a hurricane in September hit the La Paz deal hard and “totally knocked it out,” he said.

RIO RICO, AZ — At Ciruli Bros. LLC, “We look at every season and try to see if there are opportunities to diversify. We also try to be bigger in our core items,” said Chris Ciruli, chief operating officer of the family-owned produce distributor, located here.

In the last two summers, Ciruli extended well beyond its core Mexican produce business to handle squashes grown in Sunnyside, CA. The firm sold California-grown green and yellow squash, Mexican Grey squash and hard squash.

RIO RICO, AZ — Mike Smith has been in the Nogales produce business for 36 years. This is his 23rd year owning and operating Sigma Sales Inc., located here.

Smith is pleased by the formula that has always driven his business. He has observed the development of the Nogales deal.

He recently discussed those topics with The Produce News.

For Sigma, “our focus is still to provide a service. We have had a really good customer base for a long time.”

“We’re currently seeing asparagus, melons, grapes, blueberries and cucumbers being imported from several Latin American countries,” said Nelly Yunta, vice president of Customized Brokers, headquartered in Miami. “These are mostly originating from Peru, Chile, Argentina, Honduras, Guatemala and Costa Rica.” We’ll see these produce items run from about October through April.”