Peruvian snow peas and sugar snap peas from North Bay Produce Inc.’s South American growers are in early and are available, according to Vic Cotner of the international grower-owned, year-round fresh produce marketing and distribution cooperative headquartered in Traverse City, Michigan.
“We’ve had regular arrivals of peas and snaps for nearly 4 weeks. We are about to pass the six-10,000 pound per unit mark for 2016. Our PE volume is well ahead of last season and about equal to the total PE volume reported by MNS by the second week of July, 2015. We are far ahead of where we were last year,” explained Cotner, adding that the decision to plant early and plant heavy was a risk.
“We started earlier this year and we took a gamble,” said Cotner. “The weather can be very challenging, but it was not, so we’ve been lucky.”
Through North Bay Produce Inc., the green legumes have been available since late April, and Cotner predicts supplies will extend into November or December. Once the season moves into full swing, North Bay Produce Inc. will export peas to a wide variety of places.
“The U.S., Canada, Europe and Japan,” said Cotner, adding that demand for consistent, high-quality snow and sugar snap peas is healthy.
“It seems demand is increasing every week. Sugar snap peas are in high demand. We do about 60 percent sugar snap peas and 40 percent snow peas; those numbers used to be reversed.”
Traditionally, snow peas and sugar snaps have been in high demand primarily for use in ethnic dishes, but Cotner points out that snow peas and sugar snaps are increasingly used in a variety of ways.
“Today, their popularity continues to grow as the eye-catching, crunchy, low calorie beauties are increasingly used in salads, soups, stir-fry plus a wide range of gourmet and other wholesome dishes. North Bay Produce Inc. is pleased to serve the needs of all classes of trade.”
