-December 10,2020-

New low for mortgage rates

Mortgage rates eased a bit to hit another record low last week. For the week ending December 3, Freddie Mac announced that 30-year fixed rates eased one tick to 2.71% from 2.72% from the week before. The average for 15-year loans also decreased slightly to 2.26% and the average for five-year ARMs fell to 2.86%. A year ago, 30-year fixed rates averaged 3.68%, almost 1.00% higher than today

 Ventura Coastal building aseptic production facility in Tipton

Ventura Coastal and partner Sunkist are installing a $2 million aseptic  juice processing and blending facility at their Tipton location. A permit was issued last month.The company already processes orange juice this way.

Consumer demand for aseptically packaged food and beverage products has skyrocket during the pandemic.

Aseptic products have a longer shelf life as compared to others. Aseptic packaging is a method in which both the carton and product undergoes the sterilization process to increase the shelf-life and safely preserve it for future purposes. Food and beverage manufacturers use a specialized process to sterilize both contents and the container separately in a sterile environment to prevent contamination by microorganisms. Food and beverage products  can be used without refrigeration.

Analysts say that aseptic sales for the dairy industry will reach $24.6 billion globally by 2024, up from $14 billion in 2017, projects Transparency Market Research, an Albany, N.Y.-based market intelligence firm.

 “Packaging foods in a sterile condition prevents infections and leads to better preservation, which is especially important for dairy products that undergo rapid degradation” says the firm.

Canned food demand roars back

CFB

With the arrival of winter and as COVID-19 cases rise, retailers are preparing for continued increased sales of healthy, shelf-stable items such as canned cling peaches and pears.

Catherine Brew-Cain at Del Monte Foods Inc. said the company continues to see strong demand for its products.

“Sales across all our categories are up significantly this season, including canned fruit,” Brew-Cain said. “In a typical holiday season, we see a 70% sales spike. This year, we’ve already seen a 100% lift in sales.”

Del Monte has worked to meet “unprecedented demand,” she said, “by increasing our plant operations, expanding our pack season, expanding our grower and co-packer network, executing direct customer shipments from plants and increasing labeling capacity.”

Rich Hudgins, president and chief executive officer of the California Canning Peach Association, said the initial rush of “pantry loading and borderline panic buying” early in the year that led to empty supermarket shelves eventually faded, but he added that canned fruits, canned vegetables and most center-store items continue to see increases in retail sales compared to last year.

“Between the increase in retail sales momentum and a smaller-than-anticipated 2020 crop delivery, we actually moved from struggling with an oversupply situation last spring to a much more balanced inventory position today,” Hudgins said. “We’re seeing some continued decline in food-service business, but that’s been largely offset by increased retail sales.”