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Empaque Don Jorge Opens in Rosario

May 1, 2023

Boasting the most efficient and modern mango pack house around

Disclaimer: This is a boastful and prideful post about a packing house that I truly believe in. I’m one of a few globally well-traveled industry folks with an extremely diverse make up of commodities, markets, cultures and systems. I have seen a lot of packing houses and “sheds” in my travels and none like this one. Boasting this facility and the Crespo family is the natural outcome of my true beliefs.

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Empaque Don Jorge (El Original) located in the Crespo’s hometown of Rosario, Sinaloa is now open for the season. It opens, with immediate plans to expand capacity beyond its extraordinary current amplitude. 5 additional stainless steal hot water tanks, 2 additional packing lines and 1 additional washing line are just a few of the augmentations that will further expand Latin America’s largest hydrothermal mango packhouse’s prowess.

It’s opening couldn’t be more needed as we move deeper into this wild and crazy Mexican mango season! Read my latest CROP REPORT for more crop and season expectations/details. For this post, I boast!!

Farm, Featured, News

A “Big” Crop Report

March 10, 2023

The lack of small fruit is real and size Up-ortunities are too!

There is a significant and serious lack of small fruit coming out of mango orchards in the south (Chiapas & Oaxaca) right now. As a result, there is a lot of confusion and panic in the market. This is mostly because pricing remains higher than average and bigger fruit and higher prices mean more expensive pieces of fruit.

We’ve received new intel, including photos and video from our Crespo boots on the ground or in this case Roberto Crespo. His information has been coming in the last several weeks as we’ve been trying to better access the small fruit situation. It’s been coordinated and agreed upon by all Crespo’s as well as several other large and medium sized conventional and organic producers in the south. It all true, the small fruit shortage!

Farm, Featured, News, Secrets & Lies

Unstained Facts on Southern Ataulfos

February 20, 2023

Uncovering the facts about Ataulfo mango Latex staining & sap injury

This article was originally posted on Under the Mango Tree in February of 2017 and has been updated here.

Over the years, I really thought I understood the major problems affecting the “king of fruits,” specifically the varietals and those from the countries I worked with. Since I have traveled to orchards on multiple continents to examine the fruit and its “afflictions du jour,” I thought I had the facts straight on mango quality. Alas, since I met the Crespo family, I have come to discover that I had barely scratched the surface when it came to mango quality issues.

Like most everyone in the industry, I had to sift through a lot of misinformation about the quality of mangoes, but I tend to ask a lot of questions. And because I am me, I share the information I find. Under The Mango Tree’s goal has always been to get more accurate mango information to buyers, industry folks, and consumers. As we all struggle to compete in the complex agriculture world, this blog has been my attempt at being part of the solution. Talking about commodity imperfections is an important part of that process and an important part of commodity education.

Today I want to talk and share about the dark marks we see on many of the Ataulfo mangoes from time to time and most often from the ones that hail from the southern regions: Chiapas and Oaxaca. The good news in this particular affliction/imperfection is, that the mangoes ripen through the aesthetic imperfections, that tend to be more predominant when at the greener stage (when most of you receive the product), rather nicely and turn golden yellow without many blemishes (when the consumers see it). Harvesting and packhouse behaviors make a difference and so does talking about it.

Farm, Featured

Mango Blossoms WOW!

February 16, 2023

A mango tree’s flowers signal potential for #MuchosMangoes

Flowers have been top of mind this week, and it wasn’t because my social media feed was bombarded by flowers for Valentine’s Day. Rather, throngs of vibrant photos and videos of mango blossoms from the #HermanosCrespos lit up my WhatsApp, exhibiting the last of the late blooms in the south, the new blooms bursting open in the north and the vibrant openings everywhere in-between.

Beautiful mango flowers currently blanket most of Mexico. As we begin to learn more about the early season quality, yields, sizing, and the varietal nuances of the season from the southern regions’ mature fruit (where we’ve been packing for a month now), we are all filled with promise. That is what I love about mango blossoms: they gorgeously signal great possibilities in their abundance. Even though less than 1% of all blooms actually form fruit.

Farm, Featured, Secrets & Lies

Tommy Atkins = Mi Favorito Mango

January 30, 2023

A deep dive into the when’s, why’s and how’s of the firm fleshed, farmer friendly mango

My favorite mango is a Tommy Atkins, but it’s not because it’s farmer and supply chain friendly. It’s my favorite because it’s culinarily versatile and it also happens to be farmer and supply chain friendly which isn’t a bad thing.

If you google Tommy Atkins, one of the first links is Wikipedia which describes in the first sentence the Tommy as not generally considered the best in terms of sweetness and flavor. If you ask me, this sets up Tommy for a negative bias before you’ve even seen one in real life. Yes, the statement that follows is true, basically saying: it’s grown because it fares well in the production and import supply chain. But, for real, this is a gigantic part of the equation, in all parts of the world, for all commodities. Not unique to Tommy.

Before you hear the retort from an adoring Tommy Atkins fan, based on my professional mango expertise and observations, not to mention my culinary exploits, I want to report that we have harvested the first organic Tommy Atkins from El Grupo Crespo’s southern orchards and, as this glides into your inbox, our southern packhouses are cleaning, polishing, and packing them into several of our most coveted packaging SKU’s: the Crespo Big Box, Net Bags and the old faithful Crespo 4KG case (all of which have been designed to look dashing as both big and small mango displays while also proving strong as stand-alone displays and storage).

Farm, Featured, News

Empaque Don Jorge II Open for the Season in Chiapas

January 14, 2023

Plus, an additional NEW packhouse, Bola de Oro opens in Oaxaca

Back in 2019, just prior to the mango season, El Grupo Crespo opened Empaque Don Jorge II (EDJII) in Ocozocoautla de Espinosa, Chiapas, or – as the locals call it – Coita. It was the Crespo family’s second proprietary mango packhouse, plus several hundred supporting hectares of organic mango orchards. The expanded mango volumes and increased packing outputs allowed the family business to expand and grow. This season El Grupo starts their 2023 mango programs with even more volume, more capacity and more varietals. It’s exciting for me to witness their growth and see the family rewarded with recognition from the industry, retailers, wholesalers and processors.

Farm, Featured, News

Early Rain Damage & Lots of Optimism

December 21, 2022

It’s beginning to look at lot like a prosperous Mexican Mango Season

It’s that time of the year again when you all forget about fruits and vegetables amidst all the holiday hubbub, and also the time of the year when I begin thinking excessively about mangoes as we begin to prepare for the upcoming Mexican Mango Season!

I’m not going to lie, I get giddy with anticipation of all the mangoes to come, usually cooking up something mango-centric to ring in the holiday season. This year it was my Mango Pork Mole & Christmas Tamales and a very special Mexican Mezcal Pechuga Mango Milk Punch. My excitement for mangoes had already been jostled more than normal for this time of year since fresh back from a recent trip to Egypt where I had been pleasantly surprised by all the mangoes.

Farm, Featured

Mexican Blushtones!

August 17, 2022

Secret blush notes of the Sinaloa Keitt Mango

Mangoes continue to surprise and delight me. They are a lot like people. Whenever I think I know something about them, they prove me wrong. Things that grow are complex by nature, and taking a cookie cutter approach to defining them always fails.

As I proceed on my mango-centric food education mission, I have a responsibility to admit when I am wrong and when I too am guilty of being “scripted” along the way.

Farm, Featured, Product

Crespo Organic Nam Doc Mai

August 1, 2022

Thailand’s most famous dessert mango #HechoEnMexico

Where exactly is Jorge the Crespo Mango Man these days? We haven’t seen him in a while, which usually means he’s deep in the thickets of his secret projects.

Jorge Crespo is one of the four Crespo siblings, who alongside his mother run the family agricultural business ( El Grupo Crespo) that was established in 1960 in El Rosario, Sinaloa, Mexico by Jorge Longinos Crespo, Jorge’s grandfather and whom he was named after.

Jorge (Crespo) has a deep passion for all things new and different and a totally forward-thinking personality. All the Crespo siblings inherited this from their father, Roberto Crespo Fitch, who built Empaque Don Jorge in 1971 and began the family’s venture into the global world of growing, packing and exporting mangoes, and paving the way for Jorge’s sweet and intoxicating journey into growing the worlds most coveted mango cultivars in Mexico.

El Grupo Crespo’s aim is not simply to increase production and consumption of organic Mexican mangoes but to do so in a way that creates long term viable, profitable and sustainable agricultural models for their surrounding growing communities. This not only means constantly improving but changing as markets do, as economics do and as consumers needs and desires do. Continue Reading…

Farm, Featured

Mallika Mangoes

July 11, 2022

An Indian Varietal Grown In Mexico

Thanks to Jorge Crespo and his passion for all things new, including the new growing challenges, as well as his desire to expand the family’s expertise always being forward thinking (Jorge is much like his father Roberto Crespo Fitch), we have several new varietals that are being introduced n the next several seasons

Jorge’s mission aligns with the original mission laid down by his father Roberto, which is not only to simply increase production and consumption of organic Mexican mangoes, but to do so in a manner that creates long term viable, profitable and sustainable agricultural models for the growing communities in Mexico. Roberto, like his children, understood that means advancing, in systems as well as offerings. No one knows just how much things change more than farmers. And the family is always thinking of how to improve and grow as consumers needs and the market and world changes.

For El Grupo Crespo, the mango experts, there is no choice but to always be evolving and growing. New varietals are a part of that evolvement.

Our organic Mallika mangoes is one of the most exciting mangoes to be introduced on the market and its now back for the month of July!

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Farm

Empaque Don Jorge Opens in Rosario

A “Big” Crop Report

Unstained Facts on Southern Ataulfos

Uncovering the facts about Ataulfo mango Latex staining & sap injury

This article was originally posted on Under the Mango Tree in February of 2017 and has been updated here.

Mango Blossoms WOW!

A mango tree’s flowers signal potential for #MuchosMangoes

Tommy Atkins = Mi Favorito Mango

A deep dive into the when’s, why’s and how’s of the firm fleshed, farmer friendly mango

Empaque Don Jorge II Open for the Season in Chiapas

Plus, an additional NEW packhouse, Bola de Oro opens in Oaxaca

Early Rain Damage & Lots of Optimism

It’s beginning to look at lot like a prosperous Mexican Mango Season

Mexican Blushtones!

Secret blush notes of the Sinaloa Keitt Mango

Crespo Organic Nam Doc Mai

Thailand’s most famous dessert mango #HechoEnMexico

Mallika Mangoes

An Indian Varietal Grown In Mexico

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