Florida fills peach gap – The Packer

It’s May, so it’s time for peaches.

Not Georgia peaches, yet, but Florida peaches.

The Florida fruit helps fill the gap when Chile shipments end in March through Georgia’s usual mid-May start.

During the late 1960s and early 1970s, Florida grew 4,000 acres, mostly along the Georgia state line and marketed by Georgia packers.

Though a fraction of the fresh production in 2012 in California (688 million pounds), South Carolina (150 million pounds) and Georgia (66 million pounds), Florida production fills a short marketing window.

“From my brief visits there, I am very impressed by their growth and the way they’re addressing their growth,” said Kay Rentzel, the peach council’s managing director.

“They could provide a very valuable role offering domestic local and regionally grown fruit and let consumers know we have domestic peaches for a longer period of time.”

Georgia growers view the increasing production favorably.

“Florida has really done a good job at closing that gap when April has traditionally been a peach desert,” said Will McGehee, marketing director of the Georgia Peach Council in Byron and sales manager for the Genuine Georgia Group and Pearson Farm in Fort Valley, Ga.

via Florida fills peach gap – The Packer.