Featured, News

Empaque Don Jorge II Opens for the 2022 Season

January 24, 2022

Packing Crespo Organic Ataulfo & Tommy Atkins Mangoes!

Ocozocoautla de Espinosa (Coita), Chiapas, Mexico

 In 2019, just prior to the mango season, El Grupo Crespo opened Empaque Don Jorge II (EDJ II) in Ocozocoautla de Espinosa, Chiapas, or – as the locals call it – Coita. As the Crespo family’s second proprietary mango pack house moves into it’s 4th season with efficiency and expertise and begins packing mangoes along side our partner packhouse in Oaxaca, it does so with expanded organic  mango volumes and increased packing outputs.

EDJ II is not to be confused with Empaque Don Jorge (EDJI) –  El Grupo Crespo’s original and main packhouse located in El Rosario, Sinaloa, Mexico. EDJ I’s  was revamped and modernized several years ago, making it Latin America’s largest and most advanced hydrothermal mango packhouse. EDJ II is smaller but equally powerful and is expecting it’s own enlargement and modernization in the seasons ahead.

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Featured, News

Time to Brush Up On Ataulfo Marketing

January 18, 2022

 

Shortcut to success, Ataulfo Marketing 101

This is an industry geared post.

Even though it is currently cold in most states and fresh snow has blanketed much of the US, spring is definitely coming. It always does and when it does mango sales increase.  The way we crave comfort food in the winter is exactly the way we crave healthy and vibrant foods in the spring and succulent juicy, thirst quenching fruits in the summer.  Mangoes are  healthy and vibrant and thirst quenching and juicy and Ataulfos are the most vibrant and healthy mangoes we have access to in our organic marketplace and the most rewarding summer time fruit.

The buttery smooth Ataulfo flesh  makes them extremely versatile for cooking and they are easy to please consumers price wise with  sizing at 14/16/18/20 vs 8/9/10/12. The Crespo Organic Ataulfo program is robust. Not only do we take sizing and quality seriously but we have invested in the consistency of volume necessary to build sales and large season long  national programs.

The Crespo Organic seasons starts in late January and moves through  mid-August, so its also long one- worthy of some attention, especially as Ataulfos take off as the fastest growing organic varietal among consumers.

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Featured, News

2022 Crespo Organic Season Starts!

January 11, 2022

We’ve got good news and who doesn’t love that these days!

NEWS FLASH!

Before the new year I gave you my big juicy predications for the 2022 Crespo Organic Mango season and so far things are ringing true. In a string of years where everything is extraordinarily complicated, this feels really good. I know challenges are a normal part of the business but  I believe in pointing out  and celebrating when the good things happen too. This is one of those rare GOOD news flashes.

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Farm, Featured, News

Winter Off-Shore Crop Update

December 28, 2021

As we near our Mexican season, what’s happening south matters

I don’t think there could be a more unusual offshore mango season than the one that is currently happening. Perhaps it’s not unusual in the grand {supply chain} scheme of things considering ports and vessel issues are  one of the main problems.

Currently Ecuadorian fruit, which has been riddled with quality problems still lingers. Assumptions are it will be finished in the next week. Peru which began early, is now assumed to be in peak mode. But you wouldn’t really see that in terms of our marketplace. There is indeed significant volume out of Peruvian mango orchards  this year, but there is a serious shortage of vessel space in particular to the USA, which means there is very little fruit in comparison to years past.

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Farm, Featured, News

Big & Juicy Predictions for the New Year

December 28, 2021

2022 Mexican mango crop forecast seems to looking sweet

(Click here to read my offshore crop update)

Predictions for the new year rain down hard during this time of year. Experts and non-experts alike – not to mention annoying influencers – are all giving us their hot takes on the year ahead. Like clockwork, each year at this time, food, weather, clothes, politics, marketing trends, astrological prophesies and more are prognosticated upon.

In our particular industry, we are often bombarded with articles and trend predictions that ruminate on the next big it fruit or vegetable. Countless marketing newsletters flood our inboxes with opinions on whether the plant-based EVERYTHING fad is here to stay, on whether potato milk be the new oat milk, and on what item will replace mushrooms as the hippest health trend in produce?

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Featured, Kitchen

Holiday Cheer is #MangoJoy

December 22, 2021

Mango-Centric recipes sure to bring in some needed holiday cheer!

It’s been a heck of a few years and it’s looking like the year ahead isn’t going to give us too much of a COVID break. But if we have learned anything in these past COVID years, it’s how to find and feel the joy regardless of our circumstances. How to move past the difficulties and support each other and our communities, which is for us on both sides of the border.

We anticipate another difficult season with climate change, COVID and the general problems of the world that seem to keep coming at full force! We are hunkered down with our families, resting and  celebrating for the next few weeks feeling gratitude and love and preparing for the 2022 season which will begin at the end of January. Whatever will happen in 2022, we promise that we are here to bring much more #MangoJoy than ever before and are always prepared to do so…

So regardless of if you are traveling this holiday season, or staying put, be kind and loving to each other. And seek and feel joy!

Here are a few of our favorite holiday recipes from the Crespo Organic Kitchen that are certain to bring more cheer into these years ending!

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Featured, Kitchen

Mango Macadamia Nut Chili Brittle

December 19, 2021

Another holiday winner from the Crespo Organic Kitchen!

You know how much I hate mango recipes that seem meaningless, like someone just tossed mangoes into an already perfect recipe and they think they had a clever idea.  Not even examining the ideal way to incorporate a mango into the recipe. The way mangoes are often put into recipes, especially by people selling the commodity is often reckless.

Creating recipes for commodities is difficult. On one hand you must be constantly churning out new ideas and on the other, at least if you are like me- they need to be realistic, delicious and lead people to want to make them again and again.  Most of the people that want mango recipes, are generally mango lovers. I feel significant obligation in making sure all the recipes that I or anyone in the Crespo Organic Kitchen creates are not just marketing gimmicks designed to get those folks to buy more mangoes but truly practical and genius ways of teaching  mango lovers how to incorporate the essence of fruit they love into really beautiful, easy to pull off final dishes and flavors.  We want to teach them the amazing culinary versatility of mangoes and ideally help bring their own tasty ideas to fruition.  People will naturally buy more mangoes the more we can educate mango eaters on the bounty of mango joy, mangoes offer.

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Farm, Featured, News

Blooming In the Southern Mango Orchards

November 23, 2021

Ataulfo orchards bloom and we untwist season start intel

This week I have been fielding a lot of questions about when the Mexican mangoes will start up again. It’s common for me to get these emails and calls this time of year. People get confused and excited. I think as it gets colder everywhere we all want the Mexican mango season to happen sooner, after all it signals warmer weather here.

The bad news is we are still a few months away so wait we must.  The good news is the weather thus far has been great, lots of water filling the orchards and water tables. It’s way too early for us to release much of any serious information, or actual crop reports.  Year after year, after year the weather in January dictates everything for the start. Climate change in particular makes gauging start times tough, especially the beginning of a season/region.

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Culture, Featured, People

Gratitude for Organic Farmers

November 23, 2021

A pause for appreciation for those that feed us, organically

I learned about gratitude as a little girl. It was not taught to me in school or by my parents or by my country. It was taught to me by Nicaraguans. Poor Nicaraguans to be specific, who had nothing much of physical, monetary, or economic value in their possessions. At the time, mid to later 1980’s these average Nicaraguans were struggling to find food and basic necessities amidst embargoes, wars, political power struggles, corruption, CIA involvement, cocaine trafficking and more. My family, my father and four brothers just happened to be living alongside them, in similar circumstances, the struggling to find necessities part. I paid attention then, as I do now and noticed early on that despite having, what I considered, from my viewpoint as a young girl coming from a poor family in Los Angeles, nothing- they were happy. They were generous and above all they had gratitude. It took me a while to understand this formula, but eventually it’s one that is now etched in my bones and part of my blood. A way of being that I couldn’t stop being attracted to. The attraction, to living around those with immense gratitude is what lead me to farmers, small organic farmers to be exact.

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Featured, Kitchen

Mango Pie Spice

November 15, 2021

The New Flavor of Fall

If you haven’t worked in marketing, you may not be able to empathize with how pressurized it can become – to have to constantly churn out new, creative (and IMO hopefully) useful content. In the culinary education world that means new recipe ideas and techniques to simplify them, giving consumers what they want and need but may not, as of yet, even be aware they do. In produce that means tips on storage, handling, and usage, as well as flavor profiles, textures, and a fruit or a vegetable’s unique quirks. If you’re like me and want content to be genuine, it’s even more difficult. Mango-infused Thanksgiving ideas are never easy to come by, but I think once again we managed to pull it off.

We at Crespo Organic Kitchen are well-known for our multi-faceted work with mangoes. We work on the commodity side as well as the kitchen side, producing useful content that resonates with our many fans and eaters from around the globe. Ideas often start out as complex, but as culinary professionals we must turn them into easily executable concepts that any skill level can tackle. Most importantly we don’t want to just lazily toss mangoes into any old recipe; we want to be thoughtful and also clear that mangoes do not work in very dish.

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About Me

About Me

Under The Mango Tree is a sweet spot, where I, a long time mango industry crackerjack, share everything I know. A place to find mango centric, agricultural, food and culture knowledge and a few juicy industry secrets and lies.

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