Who ships peaches, and when do they book?

Commodity playbook

Who ships peaches

The two southeastern districts. California runs a far larger peach business on a different calendar and a different call list.

Ask for the packinghouse sales desk or the shipping office. These are grower-packer-shippers: they farm it, pack it and sell it, and the packinghouse tenders the truck. Several ship directly into retail distribution centres on programmes, which means appointments and scorecards. Ask whether the load is programme freight or spot before you quote it.

Where it hauls

Two districts carry the southeast. The Ridge in South Carolina, around Ridge Spring, Monetta and Johnston in Saluda and Aiken counties, plus McBee further east. The Fort Valley plateau in middle Georgia, around Fort Valley, Musella and Reynolds in Peach and Crawford counties. South Carolina ships considerably more fruit than Georgia despite the branding. California runs a much larger clingstone and freestone business on its own calendar. The southeastern packers to know:

How to open

Asking about the crop is not small talk on this commodity. A late frost during bloom can take out most of a district's fruit, and every grower in the southeast will tell you exactly where they stand.

Qualifying questions

• What is the setpoint, and has it been hydrocooled? Peaches are usually hydrocooled or forced-air cooled straight after picking and then run just above freezing. Ask whether cooling is finished at pickup. A warm load into a cold trailer stays a warm load in the middle of the pallet.
• How ripe is it, and how far is it going? Peaches soften fast and a piece of fruit that is perfect on the dock is bruised on arrival. Ask what maturity they are picking at and match it to the transit time, because that is the whole risk on this load.
• Cartons or bins, and what is the count? Most fresh fruit moves in 25 pound cartons on pallets. Bins go to processing and load completely differently. Confirm the pack, the pallet count and the gross before you quote.
• Programme freight or spot? Retail programme loads run on firm appointments with performance scored; spot moves faster and forgives less on rate. Ask which one this is, because it changes what a late arrival actually costs you.
• How did the bloom go this year? A February or March freeze can take out most of a district's crop, and it has. This question tells you whether the season is long and full or short and frantic, and any grower in the southeast will answer it honestly.

When to call

March and April, before picking starts. Once the season opens in mid-May there are only 16 weeks and nobody is onboarding a new carrier in week three. The other thing March tells you is how much freight there will actually be: bloom is in February and March, and a freeze then decides the size of the season you are bidding on.