South African avocado volumes are rising fast, so much so that Afrupro, an avocado marketer-grower, is seeing an increase of 100% on last season and for the first time in about three years, they are running their packhouse on double shifts.
“It’s a massive increase in avocados this season,” says Afrupro’s managing director, Simon Tattersall. “The season’s going well, just one or two quality issues with the large amounts of rain, but so far so good. Prior to the season I was a bit concerned about sizing but the fruit have sized up nicely. Because of the high volumes I think smaller counts could come under pressure in terms of price.”
Prices have been pretty good up to this point, he says, although the stronger Rand has reduced grower’s earnings compared to last year. Peruvian Hass are now reaching the European market. “There’s going to be a lot of volume on the market because of Peru, but fortunately they got delayed by two to three weeks, which stretched our window, but now they’re coming in so we have reduced export volumes until the large volumes start clearing. We are just meeting our fixed programmes at the moment.”
Normally that happens by week 21, but since Peru was late this year, it could only be by week 23; they’ll decide closer to the time. Hass is expected to run until week 28.
When Peruvian avocados hit the market, the effect on pricing was significant, depending on counts and cultivars.
Afrupro is marketing greenskins, Hass and Maluma avocados at the moment; strong volumes of Hass to Germany and Maluma mostly to German and Spanish receivers. Their UK supermarket programme is due to start in a week or two.
The South African industry supplies around 13% of Europe's avocados.
For more information:
Simon TattersallAfrupro
Tel: +81 477 8444
Email: simon@afrupro.co.za