According to a recent bulletin from the Office of Agricultural Studies and Policies (Odepa), Chilean vegetable exports between January and July 2022 amounted to 331.2 million FOB dollars, i.e. 8.5% more than in the same period of the previous year. Fresh vegetable exports accounted for 14.5% of this value, pasta and sauces accounted for 35.3%, seeds for 35.1%, frozen vegetable exports for 7.4%, and juice exports for 5.4%.
Tomatoes led exports by value, accounting for 36.8% of the total value and 55.4% of the total volume of vegetables exported (95.6% of the value corresponds to tomato paste). Tomato exports in this period increased by 3.7% in volume and 45.3% in value, going from 83.8 to 121.8 million FOB dollars.
Garlic follows in importance accounting for 7.4% of the country's vegetable export value and 7.7% of the export volume. 98.9% of the value was achieved via fresh garlic exports, mainly to Mexico (76.6% of the value). The value and volume of fresh garlic exports in this period decreased by 25.4% and 8.1%, respectively, over the same period of 2021.
Onions were the third most important vegetable export by value in the analyzed period, accounting for 7.3% of the value, but the second most important species in terms of volume (27.4%). Fresh onion exports accounted for 84.4% of their export value, and the main export destinations were Brazil and Spain.
In fact, onion is the horticultural species that experienced the greatest volume increase in exports in the January-July 2022 period. Onion exports increased by 16.7 thousand tons (63.7%) over the same period of the previous year, going from 26.2 to 43 thousand tons. Onion exports this year will probably break the 46 thousand tons export record achieved in 2020; the largest volume exported in the last 10 years.
Source: odepa.gob.cl