The South African citrus season has started once again. "There is a good citrus harvest on the trees in South Africa, albeit with smaller sizes, but larger volumes," says an importer. The hot topic in recent seasons was the discovery of Citrus Black Spot (CBS) and the measures are hovering over the market once again this year. According to the citrus buyer the imposed CBS measures aren't simple, but are doable. "CBS is a political problem, as in the last century not a single tree in Europe has been affected. Despite this, the Spanish lobby was so strong that these measures have been taken. It's expensive for the South Africans and difficult for us, but enough South African citrus will once again make its way to Europe, also through re-export to Spain, as long as it's declared somewhere else."
"You can see the South African growers trying harder and harder to meet the demands laid out. Especially at first, people will do anything to avoid Europe. You can already see with lemons the people are sending as much as they can to the markets outside of Europe. A grower with the full citrus package won't send his first lemons to Europe, as if there is a CBS find there will be immediate action and he won't be able to send the rest of the citrus to Europe either. But Europe is such a big client that they do need us. And a little less being sent from South Africa to Europe isn't even that bad a development for the market situation," observes the importer.
Star Ruby Grapefruit
Last week the first red Star Ruby grapefruit from South Africa arrived in the Netherlands. "Unlike last year, where there was enough Turkish and Israeli grapefruit on the market, the South African product is linking perfectly to an almost empty market. We expect a good start to the new season. The opening prices are around 15/16 Euro. South Africa will send as much grapefruit as possible to other destinations like Asia and Canada first of all, but in the end quite a lot of volume will come this way. Hopefully this will happen structurally and not arrive all at once. France in particular is a big grapefruit buyer. Around 50% of the volume goes there and Russia is also a big customer. So far not that much fruit has been packaged and the market will remain at this level for the next few weeks. Grapefruit will be available until September."