IN FRUIT
It’s all about winter berries this week. The new season Queensland strawberries are flooding in, and prices that are already quite reasonable are going to get cheaper and it’s going to be soon. Blueberries also are teetering as people switch to the more attractively priced strawberry option. Raspberries though not oversupplied are under pressure and there are excellent blackberries available also. Unless we get rain, both strawberries and blueberries will be cheap by next week. Hass avocados are still also very reasonable as are Navel oranges. Limes are easing in price and will be similar in price to lemons in a week or so. The other interesting product is kiwi fruit. As consumers switch to gold kiwi, this is starting to put pressure on the price of the more established green fruit. Both are now similar in price. Personally, I much prefer the gold but that view is not shared by all. In any case, we expect to see green kiwi get cheaper over the next week or two. Still mountains of apples and pears at great prices, and southern imperial mandarins and other varieties of mandarins will create opportunities soon also.
IN VEGETABLES
The dearer tomato prices from last week will be all over by this weekend. Again though, it is snacking tomatoes that to me are not the cheapest but the best value. We are continuing to offer very reasonably priced Tasmanian eschallots this week, that special proved to be very popular last week. Fennel, broccoli, broccolini and cauliflowers are very well priced and great products for winter meals. Iceberg lettuce is still reasonable, snow peas are easing off last week’s high prices and red capsicums, now arriving from Queensland are coming down in price also. For a change, we have imperfect purple sweet potato this week. The purple sweet potato is far sweeter than kumera and is usually fifty percent or even dearer than kumera. This week the imperfect purple will be a real bargain at all HFM stores.
