Effective April 1, The Grape Guys in Visalia, CA, partnered with Eagle Eye Produce Inc. in Idaho Falls, ID, in the formation of a new company called Eagle Eye Grape Guys LLC.

The new company will continue to use the “Grape Guys” name along with “Eagle Eye,” at least for the time being, according to Shaun Ricks, president and a founding partner of the former company, and now vice president of sales and marketing for the new company, which is now listed in the Blue Book as Eagle Eye Grape Guys LLC, a subsidiary of Eagle Eye Produce Inc.

Crown Jewels Produce Co. in Fresno, CA, is a diversified grower, shipper and distributor of fruits and vegetables from California, Mexico and other producing regions.

Fresh table grapes are “a big part of what we do,” and grapes from Mexico are an important part of the company’s year-round program, bridging from the end of the Chilean deal to the start of the California deal, according to Atomic Torosian, a partner in the company.

“Our programmed volume” of grapes out of Mexico “has actually quintupled for the upcoming season” over 2012, Louie Galvan, a partner in Fruit Royale Inc. in Delano, CA, said in an interview with The Produce News. “We will have grapes from the very beginning, starting with our Perlettes,” which were expected to begin harvest around the week of May 6, followed by Flames about mid-month.

“We brought a couple of sizeable growers on board, so we will have quite a bit more volume from beginning to end,” he said.

The Mexican grape program of Divine Flavor LLC in Nogales, AZ, has “grown quite a bit the last couple of years, with new acreage and new varieties,” according to Carlos Bon, a salesman for the company and category manager for table grapes, stone fruit and melons.

“We are really looking forward to this season, because it is finally the season where we have commercial volume of new varieties that are better when it comes to shelf life, better when it comes to quality, and easier to color. We are pretty excited, because it is like the start of a new era for us,” he said April 1.

The annual grape volume at MAS Melons & Grapes LLC in Nogales, AZ, is typically about 500,000 to 550,000 boxes, according to Miguel Suarez, sales manager and managing partner. It has on occasions been higher. “The most we have done as a company was about 750,000 [boxes], and that was about seven years ago,” he said.

Last year, MAS handled about 500,000 boxes of grapes. But “because of changes and some growth in some of the vineyards, we think this year we could make 600,000,” he said.

The potential increase over last year is largely due to added acreage.

One of the most visible transformations in recent years in the California table grape industry has been the proliferation of new grape varieties, some from university programs and some from private breeding programs.