Tropical fruit importers feel pressure to keep prices low

Excerpt from The Packer published on 01/07/2010

Suppliers of wintertime produce from Central America and the Caribbean are finding that in the economic downturn they have to lower prices in order to keep customers.

Mary Ostlund, director of marketing for Brooks Tropicals, Homestead, Fla., argued that tropicals — whether vegetables or fruit — are already priced at good values for consumers.

“Luckily, I think that people realize that a lot of tropicals are bargains,” she said. “For example, with Caribbean Red papayas you get a lot of papaya for the buck, and Florida avocados are much larger and there is a lot of meat in those avocadoes. There’s a lot of bang for the buck.”