The general manager of the Peruvian Association of Producers and Exporters of Mango (APEM), Juan Carlos Rivera Ortega, stated that Peru was expected to export 180 thousand tons of fresh mango in the current 2017/2018 campaign, which would represent a slight increase compared to 179 thousand tons it dispatched in the previous season (2016/2017).
Rivera Ortega also said that 55% of exports would be sent to Europe, 35% to the United States, and the rest to other markets such as China, Chile, New Zealand, South Korea, and Japan.
The demand for mango by Asian countries has been growing but tentatively, he said. Hence, this market isn't expected to become one of the main destinations for this Peruvian fruit in the short term.
"This happens because we can not get our mangoes to these destinations quickly. We could ship them by air but that would limit the volume," he said.
He also said that the shipments of large-sized mangoes (650 grams to 900 grams) to the United States hadn't had the overwhelming success that was expected. "We make some exports of that type of mango but they haven't had the growth we expected, basically because we do not have an abundance of mangoes of large sizes."
According to Juan Carlos Rivera, the mango season 2017/2018 started three weeks ago, however the country is only dispatching the earliest varieties for now, such as the Edward, Haden, and Ataulfo varieties.
He said that in the first three weeks of the campaign Peru exported 1,840 tons (i.e. 80 containers of 23 tons each), 80% of which was sent to Chile and the remaining 20% to Europe.
"This week some processing plants are being certified to start shipments to the United States and Europe," he said.
He also said that exports of mango variety Kent, which are the bulk of shipments, start the first week of December.
Source: agraria.pe