Shorter Turkish lemon season higher prices

According to Aysel Oguz of the company Eren Tarim, lemon prices in Turkey currently stand at more than 1.10 Euro per kilo. She affirms that, due to the impact of bad weather, “it is very difficult at the moment to find good quality lemons,” and most of the low quality lemons cannot be exported. “Given the current situation, I don’t know what’s going to happen next year, but prices will likely continue to rise in the coming months, as only Spain and Turkey will be supplying lemons and both will have high prices.”

Emre Tanriover, of TANEKS, a major exporter in the Mersin area, confirms that the reason for the high lemon prices is the difficulty in finding good quality fruit, because of the frost. “The season for us would normally end in late April, but I think this time it will be over in March, in about 15 days.” He also assures that lemon exports to Russia continue and demand is really high. “The last container we shipped to Russia, last Saturday, reached a price of 1.15 dollars FOB, which is a lot higher than last year.”