2015 Record Crop Value For California Table Grapes

The California table grape industry saw another record year, with 110.5 million boxes of grapes shipped during the 2015 season. This set a new record crop value at $1.83 billion, surpassing the previous record of $1.76 billion set in 2014.

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A majority of the crop is consumed in the U.S., but there is still a considerable export market for California table grapes. Last year, 34.7% of the total volume was exported to more than 50 countries around the world, with a total export volume of 37.9 million 19‐pound boxes valued at $737.8 million.

The top five volume export markets were Canada at 11.3 million 19‐pound boxes, followed by Mexico at 5.7 million, China/Hong Kong at 3.5 million, the Philippines at 1.9 million, and Taiwan at 1.8 million.

“Since the industry surpassed the 100 million box mark for the first time in its history in 2012, the total crop volume has seen three consecutive years over 110 million boxes,” says California Table Grape Commission President Kathleen Nave.

The 2015 season total of 110.5 million boxes was the third largest crop volume in the industry’s history, just below the 2014 total of 110.9 million. The largest crop was in 2013 at 117.4 million boxes.

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Grapes from California are available from May through January, and with the 2016 season only about six weeks away, the commission is gearing up its global campaign for California grapes.

“The commission campaign focuses on motivating the trade to promote, and consumers to buy, more grapes from California more often,” Nave says.

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