"So far so good," said Jacques du Preez from Hortgro. "The apple volume is up on last year, but online with 2013. Sizes at the beginning of the season were small but they are back to normal now."
As you can see from the table total apple exports will be up almost 7 million cartons on last year but slightly down from 2013, where as pears are just over a million cartons down on 2014.
Three containers of South African apples are on the way to China and another 2-3 are ready to leave, "Exports to China are slowly picking up, but it is difficult to tell how much will actually go, we will need to see how they are received and what sort of prices they get," explains du Preez.
Royal Beauts and Grannies and eventually Fujis will go to China, du Preez explains that the fruit is sold at a premium there as the quality is very high.
Volumes to Europe will be a little less than last year, although du Preez said that the European market was better than expected considering the high stocks and ban to the Russian market.
Africa will be big again according to du Preez, although the low oil price has impacted sales there. Last year Africa took first place from the UK regarding apple exports, but it looks like the two markets will be neck and neck this season.
As for individual varieties Golden and Grannies will see the biggest increase in volume at around 2 million cartons each, at 10m and 6.88m cartons respectively with Gala expected to be up by 1 million cartons at 6.5m cartons.
Pear volumes have been very steady over the last few years. Estimates for the two biggest varieties, Packham's and Forelle are 5.78m and 3.49m cartons respectively.