Overall navel volumes from the Western Cape to the USA didn’t much exceed the usual, says Piet Smit, marketing director of Favourite Fresh Export, but California’s early exit made space in the early navel market. During the peak navel production weeks – weeks 21 to 25 – more navels were sent. Meanwhile, however, Chile did the same, particularly of smaller sizes (88s, 105s), resulting in a total oversupply of summer citrus on the market.
“Chile sees the US as their natural market where they send almost everything they have and this season it caused chaos, a total oversupply,” he says. “South Africa tends to do programmed business, shipping only citrus that has an address and a home before it leaves the country. It doesn't seem like Chile has the same strategy. In an oversupplied market of summer oranges, and with the competition of locally-produced summer fruit on the US market, the returns back to growers will always be extremely low."
He continues: "Growers and producers who do not supply fixed retail programmes would have struggled this season."
Navels tended towards smaller sizes, especially during the middle part of the season.
For producers from the northern parts of the country, watching the US market with particular interest, this season would serve as a cautionary tale.
“The US is a completely open market that is being oversupplied and I don’t foresee that changing,” Piet says. “Producers thinking of sending to the US should do their sums carefully. The Far East, the UK and the EU performed better than the US this year.”
Depending on market conditions, the Western Cape sends about 30% of its navels to the USA.
Soft citrus season an improvement on navels
“Soft citrus did relatively well in the US. Prices were somewhat lower than traditionally, but at levels we could live with. It wasn’t the same train smash as with navels. We see that easy peelers are cannibalising on the market share of navels.”
And similar to Europe, a bumper crop of summer fruit in the Northern Hemisphere provided a lot of competition to citrus.
Northern Cape grapefruit valued by the US market
“The grapefruit market is stable and shows some growth over the past few years, from a low base. We sent 4,760 pallets this season to the US. Grapefruit from the Northern Cape has excellent taste and colour, competing very well with Californian grapefruit. We only send Star Ruby and in my opinion it is the best quality available for that time of the year."
Over the 20 weeks of the US campaign 53,860 pallets of fruit were sent to the US, showing an 8% increase across all cultivars, and roughly the same level of growth in navel exports, he says. Navels made up 30,880 pallets of the total exports, easy peelers 12,615 pallets.
The last break bulk vessel with South African citrus for the season, carrying Midknights, will land on American shores on 1 October.
For more information:
Piet Smit
Favourite Fresh Export
Tel: +27 22 921 2636
Email: piet@cedarpack.com
https://www.ffesa.co.za/