Harvest of Peruvian grapes are coming to the end of a more sizeable 2021-2022 crop.
Vanguard Group CEO Craig Stauffer notes that up to week eight, Peru had shipped 61.5 million boxes of grapes--10 percent more than year to date 2021 when Peru had shipped 55.7M boxes. “Peru is on its way to exceed the forecasted growth of nine percent over the previous year. Peru will very likely hit 64 million equivalent boxes, an increase over the initial forecast of 62.5 million at the beginning of the season,” says Stauffer.
Peru’s acreage didn’t increase this year but acreage that was planted two seasons ago came into maturity and boosted overall production and doubling export volume. “Weather conditions were excellent and the start of the harvest was as expected in early November and ended as planned in mid-March,” says Dirk Winkelmann, Vanguard Direct president. “Quality and harvest condition was very good. From an in-country production perspective we have been on target with our plans. We have also seen growth in the industry due to a combination of new plantings coming into maturity and the newer IP varieties being generally more productive than older traditional varieties.”
Most challenging season ever
At the same time, this season has proved to be the most challenging ever for the industry. “We, along with the rest of the Peruvian industry, have been plagued by numerous logistical issues and ever-increasing costs. The issues including the lack of containers at critical moments during the harvest, delays in vessel departures, extended transit times to almost all markets, port congestion and delayed releases and container discharges, lack of chassis and drivers to get containers to customers and that has affected the condition of our product and impacted customers' abilities to properly plan their sales activities,” says Winkelmann.
Meanwhile, input costs continue to rise on everything from ag inputs to materials to fuel and more. “The availability of materials is problem requiring constant attention – bags, wood boxes, cardboard cartons, wood pallets and packing material in general. It’s requiring us to constantly improve our management processes which we feel we have done quite well,” says Winkelmann.
As far as varieties, the remaining ones shipping are Red Globes, Green Seedless and Red Seedless out of the Ica region. “Harvest is now done. We finished the second week of March as planned and have roughly a third of our crop yet to arrive and be sold,” Winkelmann says. “The markets have weakened substantially over the past two weeks, especially on red seedless and black seedless into North America. Fortunately we have a good portion of our later arrivals in program business which weathers with less volatility the market gyrations.”
Good stable demand for IP varieties
IP varieties, specifically the new IP green seedless varieties, do continue to see good demand and are proving to be less susceptible to dramatic drops in the market. “It is very exciting to see many of the markets once considered “Red Globe only” markets embracing these new green varieties,” says Stauffer. “We are seeing a confirmation of “the winners” within the more recently planted IP varieties. Within the past year we have not taken a position on any new varieties on our ranches for a number of reasons. First we feel that we now have the right portfolio of IP varieties by color and will be taking out the weaker varieties, whether due to yield, market demand/return, or shelf life which has become an ever more important factor as we face those logistical challenges.”
In the meantime, Chile is shipping what looks to be fewer grapes this season--through week eight, Chile has shipped 24.9m boxes or eight percent less than last year to date. “South Africa is into the last stretch and has with another two to three weeks of solid weekly volumes. Total RSA exports through week eight are 52M boxes,” says Stauffer.
For more information:
Andrea Bava
Vanguard International
Tel: +1 (778) 908-1764
andrea@blitzme.ca
https://www.vanguardteam.com