SANTA PAULA, CA - Limoneira Company recently announced its third quarter fiscal 2023 financial results. For the third quarter, the company reported total net revenue of $52.5 million. Harold Edwards, President and Chief Executive Officer, shared comments across multiple sectors, including the company’s recent efforts in water fallowing.

“The success of our strategic shift toward an ‘asset-lighter’ business model is evident in our third quarter results, with brokered lemons and other lemon sales growing 76 percent year-over-year to $8.8 million and achieving farm management revenue of $5.4 million,” he noted. “Additionally, we continue to make headway monetizing water assets with the recently announced water fallowing program in Yuma, Arizona, for expected annual proceeds of $1.3 million. We anticipate the sale of our two remaining identified non-strategic assets in the next nine months. Over the past year, we have worked to identify and eliminate unproductive or unprofitable parts of our business including the sale of non-strategic assets, exiting farming operations in Cadiz and terminating our long-term pension plan—all of which we expect to dramatically improve our margins starting in fiscal year 2024.”

Highlights from the financial include:

• Agribusiness revenue for the third quarter of fiscal year 2023 includes $24.2 million in fresh lemon sales, compared to $27.8 million of fresh lemon sales during the same period of fiscal year 2022.
• Approximately 1.4 million cartons of U.S. packed fresh lemons were sold in aggregate during the third quarter of fiscal year 2023 at a $17.92 average price per carton
• The company recognized $3.5 million of avocado revenue in the third quarter of fiscal year 2023

Edwards made several more remarks regarding the financial results.

“Our third quarter results were impacted by lower lemon pricing and lower fresh utilization rates as a result of the heavy rains in California throughout December until May, which delayed a portion of our lemon harvest by two months and led to an industry-wide pest issue that lowered the grade on certain fruit,” he stated. “As a result, lemon pricing remained pressured throughout the quarter. However, as of the beginning of August lemon pricing has steadily been increasing for all grades and sizes with prices up compared to the last few years and at the highest level since 2018. We believe this positions us very well for expected higher lemon pricing in fiscal year 2024.”

To learn more about the company’s earnings, click here.

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Limoneira Company