It is not easy to analyze the banana market during this period, even for an expert such as Alessandro Dal Bello from Sife. "There are contrasting signals - the markets and big retail chains are buying, but the price trend is unclear."
On the one hand, as this is the fourth week, purchases have dropped slightly but, on the other hand, January has always been a slow month for bananas and the pandemic does not help.
"The market usually livens up from mid-February onwards. We will have to wait and see whether it will happen this year as well. As for prices, they range from €14 to €20 per box for the green produce depending on the brand. The difference looks too great for me, but it keeps evolving."
What is certain is that, over the next few weeks, there will be less produce than during a normal year. "I believe prices will increase. There has been less produce in Ecuador due to the damage caused by the volcano eruption, then a hurricane damaged crops in central America. However, the quality from other countries such as Costa Rica is very good."
There seem to be other problems on the horizon. "There might be some imminent logistic problems due to the lack of containers. Because of the pandemic, containers seem to be grouped in certain parts of the world and manufacturers, fearing a drop in traffic, have made fewer of them to replace obsolete ones."
Contacts:
Dal Bello SIFE
Corso Stati Uniti 23
35127 Padova (PD) - Italy
Tel.: +39 049 8703000
Email: direzione@sife.it
Website: www.dalbellosife.com