"The season has been very good so far," explains Clive Garrett from South African exporter ZZ2. "We had good rain earlier in the season so sizing is good, also there were very few quality issues; we had a few on the green varieties but, all in all, nice volumes have gone through."
Last year there was hail and ZZ2 lost a third of the crop, around 700,000 cartons, so according to Clive, anything better than that is great!!
"Volumes have been good, although the drought did cause a bit strain on the trees, so we possibly could have had more, but saying that we are happy with what we have."
The European market is very good at the moment. Chile, Spain and Israel ended relatively and early and big volumes from Peru have not started to come in yet so South African suppliers have had a nice window to play with, "We have been shipping since early March so are 6 weeks into the season already, this is a normal start time. We expect volumes to increase quite a lot from week 18 onwards."
The situation in Peru still is unclear as there was a lot of damage to the infrastructure during the heavy rains and floods but they will most probably send a lot to the States, though Clive is also expecting big volumes to arrive in the Europe from around week 18.
ZZ2 doesn't ship much to the Middle East as there is not a huge demand, but have started shipping to the Far East this season where demand is increasing.
The local market is also very good this year as it is extremely empty. "I think what is happening is that, because the Rand has taken such a dip due to the political situation and the general shortage in Europe, resulting in higher prices, people are trying to export as much as possible, leaving the local market dry. Fruit which is not quite export quality goes to the local market; this is not bad fruit but it may have a blemish on the skin for instance, and they will sell for a lower price on the local market."
The green skin varieties are still more popular on the local market. South African’s have grown up with these, but consumers are slowly coming over to the brown, dark skin varieties.
All of ZZ2's avocados are sold under the ZZ2 Afrikado brand.
For more information:
Clive Garret
ZZ2
Tel: +27 15 395 8460
Email: cliveg@zz2.biz
www.zz2.biz