Mango starts to compete with other products with more presence such as strawberries and pineapples.
Although bananas still dominate U.S. consumer preference, where purchases were around 2,000 million dollars in 2011, and continue to grow at a rate of 5% this year, mangoes sales are booming.
Mango imports rose from 226 million in 2007 to 343 million in 2011, with an increase of 5% this year.
Mexico has become the main supplier of this fruit, followed by Peru, Brazil, Ecuador, Guatemala and Haiti.
Today, dried mango and mango pulp sales have the highest growth trends.
Colombian mango sales almost reached 9 million dollars last year.
However, until the end of last April, they had declined by 25%, according to figures from the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
Despite the steady rise of mango, pineapple still has an important participation in the tropical fruit sector, with sales that reached nearly 500 million dollars a year, a very similar figure to that obtained by the citrus category, which touched the peak value of 515 million.
Agricultural authorities in the United States have projected the figure for imports of fruits, both fresh and processed, at 10,500 million for this year.
Among the items that show strong increases are strawberries (54%), berries (14%), apples (11%) and pineapples (9%), well above the average rate of 4%.
In contrast, plums have dropped (24%), citrus (21%), pears (17%), kiwi (10%), avocados (5%) and grapes (4%).
Source: Portafolio