After an unprecedented period of sustained high pricing and low supply levels, the California cauliflower market has seesawed thanks to warm, wet weather in the state’s desert growing regions.
“All the buyers are stuck,” says Chris Amaral of Amaral Ranches. “They can’t handle the change.”
According to Amaral, his state’s cauliflower growers have been in short supply since early November. “For about three months there, it was crazy,” he says, noting that FOB prices consistently ranged between $40.00 to $50.00 during that period. “That’s one of the longest [high-price] markets I’ve seen in a long time.”
Amaral explains that the shortage started in Salinas, then continued when production shifted to the desert. “Salinas ended about a month early,” says Amaral. “Then we moved to the desert, and a bunch of cold weather hit.”
Warm weather and rain to blame
Desert weather has become wetter and warmer in recent weeks, however, causing a drastic shift in the market. “Supply has just come on now,” Amaral says. With warm weather and rain spells hitting desert farms, yields have spiked, flooding suppliers with crop. After the $40.00 to $50.00 prices of November, December, and early January, prices have now plummeted to between $8.00 and $14.00.
Amaral notes that due to its dependence on weather, cauliflower is prone to price fluctuation. “Cauliflower tends to move very volatilely.” Because of this, Amaral says that the sudden price drop is more in keeping with typical market conditions than the sustained high-pricing of the last three months. As such, Amaral believes that the market will return to its typical patterns soon enough. “It’ll flatten out,” he says.
