Team cherimoya: from left, Raul Lopez, Luis Ortiz, Remedios Lopez, and Adan Lopez.
Cherimoyas a Carpinteria delicacy C
B y Peter Dugré Ph otos By Joshua Curry
herimoyas earn their reputation of being needy, delicate fruits every year. Winter 2017-2018, prime harvest season, demonstrated just how temperamental these exotic fruits can be. Even orchards unscathed by the flames of the Thomas Fire saw over half of their fruit tarnished. The cherimoyas choked on the smoke and fell to the ground. Growers and packers scrambled to salvage what could be harvested and sent to market but saw much of the intensive work required to grow cherimoyas go to waste. Approximately 80 percent of the U.S. cherimoya crop is grown locally, so for those in the business, it was hard to meet demand, and at times prices shot up to nearly $15 for a single large cherimoya. Peter Nichols, who packs cherimoyas and other rare delicacies at Santa Barbara Exotics on Via Real, saw his personal crop and those of the other ranchers in the area plummet. Overall, there was a 40 percent reduction of fruit processed at his packing house, which in an average year packs over 250,000 pounds. He and his family are not new to the game. “That’s agriculture. It fluctuates,” he reasons. 48 CARPINTERIAMAGAZINE.com
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