The Brazilian exporter of mangoes, UP-Fruit, are seeing higher final selling prices and stable demand in Europe, the USA and Canada, but it is still not high enough to cover the increasing input costs, such as shipping. “Final selling prices are higher, but not high enough to face the increasing costs of pre and post-harvest treatment products and especially the highest level of sea freight we have ever seen,” says Cassiano Berol, from the UP-Fruit Sales Department.
As the all year round Brazilian mango season is now seeing exports in full-swing in the second half of the year, demand has increased across Europe, with demand in the USA expected to be higher soon says Berol.
“On the one hand, from Europe demand is good and stable. On the other hand, USA demand for Brazilian mango is expected to be higher soon, as currently there is still supply of Mexican mangoes. Brazil supplies in a gap between Mexico and Ecuador’s seasons. Another important mango supplier to the USA is Peru. These other countries are closer to the US, meaning they are able to supply at a lower cost.”
Up-Fruit is a company of the Brazilian Group Tropical Distr. Hortifrut. Ltda. They have for 32 years been on the domestic Brazilian market and more recently started supplying the European, USA and Canada markets. They also supply exotics such as limes and sweet potatoes, ginger, figs, guavas, atemoyas, starfruits, avocados etc.
The UP-Fruit Team
“For mangoes we work in cooperation with Ebraz, another Brazilian sister company of ours, which has more than 300 000 trees of Mangoes in Juazeiro/Petrolina – Northeast of Brazil. In this area mango is cultivated on a large scale, as the weather is favourable with little rain, the soil is abundant and water comes from the famous São Francisco River, one of the most important rivers for the Brazilian agribusiness sector. We have five different varieties of mangoes to offer, Keitt, Tommy Atkins, Osteen, Palmer, while we only have Kent from the end of September until November, the rest we can supply all year round. The North of Europe is in love with the Keitt variety (whose season during the second half of the year), but you can also find tommy and Palmer on these markets as well. Portugal and Spain like Palmer. France likes Kent the most and is busy discovering our Osteen variety. The USA prefers our Tommy’s.”
“We feel very confident about quality, as we mentioned before - on the São Francisco Valley region, weather is favourable to the mango cultivation. In addition to that, if any unexpected rain comes during the growing processes, Ebraz has the expertise to treat the fruit properly, in that way we can correct any quality issue in time,” explains Berol.
They make use of two separate pack houses for their key markets. The first packhouse is for USA loading, where a USDA inspector remains during the packing processes - that must be done after the hot water treatment on the fruit. The second is the European packing house, that has the main certifications to Europe, just like GGap, Grasp, Smeta, Fair Trade, etc.
Berol explains how UP-Fruit is managing the increased shipping costs: “Based on a long term relationship with agents, shipping lines and combined with the very strong background in terms of volumes / statistics that we’ve been loading in association with Ebraz, we are managing the “crazy” situation of international logistics.”
For more information:
Cassiano Berol
UP-Fruit
Tel: +55 19 3716 8282 ext 129 / + 55 19 9 9656 4267
Email: cassiano@up-fruit.com
www.up-fruit.com