Produce season reference
Refrigerated capacity is not a national market. It is a series of regional pulls that arrive on a schedule, and the shippers who plan against that schedule pay less than the ones who react to it.
The calendar
Timing is approximate and shifts every year with weather. The pattern does not.
| Month | Pressure | Where the freight is | What it means for you |
|---|---|---|---|
| January | Moderate | Yuma leafy greens, Florida tomatoes and peppers, Mexico crossing at Nogales and the Texas valley | Post-holiday reset. Usually the easiest booking month of the year. |
| February | Building | Yuma at peak, Nogales heavy as Mexican volume climbs, Florida strawberries | Arizona and south Texas start tightening. Book Nogales lanes earlier than feels necessary. |
| March | Tight | Nogales peak, Florida strawberry peak, first Salinas transition talk | Border capacity is the constraint. Drivers are already positioning for the California move. |
| April | Tight | Yuma winding down, Huron and early Salinas, Florida spring vegetables | The desert to coast transition. Equipment repositions and short-term rates spike on the moves that follow it. |
| May | Very tight | Salinas ramping, Vidalia onions, Georgia and Carolina vegetables, Florida melons and sweet corn | California and the Southeast pull at the same time. One of the two hardest months of the year. |
| June | Very tight | Salinas peak, Georgia peaches and blueberries, Michigan and New Jersey opening | Peak national reefer demand. Contracted capacity earns its premium here. |
| July | Very tight | Salinas holding, Washington cherries, Midwest sweet corn, Michigan | Independence Day compresses a full week of volume into three days. Plan around it, not through it. |
| August | Tight | California stone fruit and grapes, Michigan heavy, Washington apples beginning | Demand starts shifting north and west. Watch for equipment leaving the Midwest early. |
| September | Very tight | Washington apple peak, Michigan apples, California grapes | The Pacific Northwest pull is the single largest regional reefer draw of the year. Outbound PNW is the problem lane. |
| October | Tight | Washington apples continuing, cranberries, pumpkins, Florida winter deal starting | Produce peak overlaps the start of retail holiday freight. Dry van pressure begins competing for drivers. |
| November | Extreme | Thanksgiving distribution, Yuma and Florida winter opening, Mexico restarting | The hardest month. Holiday food distribution, a regional transition and retail peak land together. |
| December | Tight, then soft | Holiday food distribution, Yuma, Florida, Nogales | Extremely tight to roughly the 20th, then the market falls away. Anything that can move early should. |
What actually drives it
The expensive weeks are not the peak weeks. They are the two or three weeks when a deal moves from one region to another and equipment has to reposition empty to follow it. Yuma to Salinas in April and the northward move in August are the two that catch people.
Getting a truck into a produce region during its season is easy. Getting one out is the constraint, and it is what the rate is actually pricing. If your lane runs against the seasonal flow, that is the conversation to have early.
A holiday week does not remove volume. It forces the same volume into fewer working days, against receivers with shorter hours. Every holiday in the second half of the year behaves this way.
Planning against it
Committed capacity priced during a soft month is worth considerably more than a spot quote during a tight one. The time to price your November is not November.
Most shippers have two or three lanes that are genuinely exposed to a regional pull and a dozen that are not. Treating them all the same is what makes a season expensive.
Windows shift with weather every year. Use this to know which conversation to have and when, not as a date to plan a load against.
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