This year, Egyptian mango and guava exporters are expected to boost their presence in the EU market, according to EastFruit. The data for the first nine months of 2023 show that the EU imported more Egyptian mango and guava than in the whole of 2022, and the volume of shipments from Egypt in this direction will have at least tripled since 2018.
From January to September 2023, nearly 1,500 tons of mango and guava were imported from Egypt to the EU. This is already a record-breaking amount, as the figure for 2022 was just over 1,300 tons. Considering that the peak export season for this product lasts until the end of November, the final outcome for this year will be even more impressive.
Interestingly, Spain is still the leader in importing Egyptian mango and guava in 2023, even though it hardly imported any of this product before. This year, the volume of supplies from Egypt to the Spanish market has already reached about 300 tons. Other key EU importers include Italy, Germany, France, the Netherlands, and Greece, which together with Spain account for about 94% of the EU’s imports of mango and guava from Egypt in January-September 2023.
“The bulk of exports in this category from Egypt consists of fresh mango, which has a season that starts in summer and ends in late autumn or early winter. Fresh guava is exported in much smaller quantities, generating 5-7 times less revenue for Egypt annually than mango exports. However, the Egyptian guava export season is longer: it starts at the end of summer and lasts throughout the autumn and winter, ending in the spring of the following year. The country also exports dried mango and guava, but the annual exports of these sub-categories to all markets do not exceed $1 million,” comments Yevhen Kuzin, Fruit & Vegetable Market Analyst at EastFruit.
The EU countries are one of the largest markets for mango and guava in the world. In 2021, they imported 409 thousand tons of these products from countries outside the EU, but then the figure dropped slightly to 390 thousand tons due to food inflation and rising logistics costs. This year, imports have resumed their growth, and the volume for January-September (308 thousand tons) has already surpassed the previous year’s result for the same period.