The Bee Sweet Citrus facility in Fowler was one of the many industrial businesses that adopted solar power in 2017. Photo via Bee Sweet Citrus

Fowler-based Bee Sweet Co. is underway on a 225,000 square-foot mandarin processing plant at their expansive Highway 99 campus.

The City of Fowler has approved a plan to build the new facility on South Avenue.

Bee Sweet Vice President Ben Ladd says the state-of-the-art plant will enable the citrus packer to more efficiently handle the mandarin orange crop beginning in 2022. For example, the company expects to eliminate the need for a night shift to keep up with increasing volume of the tangy fruit varieties that ripen one after another over the winter and spring months. The volume of the kid-favorite citrus being grown in the Central Valley continues to climb each year.

“Last year was the biggest crop ever” states Ladd

Unlike their significant competitors in the mandarin marketplace, Bee Sweet tangerines are not marketed with any of those cute brand names other grower/packers use to sell these smaller size, typically seedless, easy-peel fruit.

All citrus variety sales have enjoyed a big boost during the pandemic with their high Vitamin C content the best sales pitch of all.

“We just market under our Bee Sweet brand,” explains Ladd, proud they pack not just mandarins but also 15 different varieties of citrus, shipping to retail customers including Walmart. Like their competitors, Bee Sweet has adopted the handy 3-pound netting bags shoppers are now used to.

Bee Sweet Citrus was founded in 1987 as an independent packer and shipper of California oranges. Since then the company has expanded its offerings. Now year-round with some South American fruit filling in the gap, Bee Sweet ships throughout the United States, Canada, Europe, Australia, New Zealand and several Pacific Rim countries including Japan.

The new Bee Sweet facility will feature cold storage, high tech washing, sorting and packing lines as well as a large shipping and dock area next to Highway 99. Solar panels already cover the multi-building citrus packing complex south of Fresno.

Bee Sweet is in a competitive space with other major players including Fowler Packing. Located just across the freeway, Fowler Packing markets its mandarins under the Peelz name. There is also Kern County-based Sun Pacific, which markets under the Cuties brand of clementine variety mandarins.

Then there is Wonderful Citrus, which markets Halos out of its 500,000 square-foot facility in Delano. Not to be left behind, Sunkist has several varieties grown by members and packed in the familiar bags under the Gold Nugget and Delite label.

A decade ago, Mandarin acreage in the Valley was 30,000 acres — up from 23,000 acres in 2007. It now totals about 67,000 acres compared to 46,000 acres in 2013. Most of that is grown in Tulare, Kern and Fresno counties.

While mandarin production was up 25% this past year, the U.S. Department of Agriculture says navel orange production fell 7%. Indeed, while mandarin acres have more than doubled in the past ten years, navel orange acres in California shrunk from 130,000 acres to 116,000 acres today.

In 2020/21 there were 40 million boxes of navels packed compared to the newer guys on the block — mandarin varieties at 28 million boxes.

Last year was a good one for prices to the grower of most California citrus. All agree there is plenty of room for both that iconic Washington Navel orange and those tangy little mandarins.