After what can only be described as a challenging pear season from a production point of view, export markets have performed above expectation and revived interested among producers to invest in varieties that offer access to new markets such as China as well as markets where we’ve seen consistent growth in returns over the past decade.
With a clear shift in exports of blush pears over the past five years from Western to Eastern markets, it is the Far Eastern markets who have enjoyed the most growth resulting in an average increase in volumes of more than 30% with the Middle Eastern on 12%.
It is further worth noting that the past season China imported approximately 30% of the blush pear volumes exported to the Far East in a season where they, for the first time, have had access from the early to the late season. Despite uncertainty about market performance ahead of shipping, exporters and importers proved that this market is ready for South African blush pears and have the returns to growers to show for it. Other markets performing well in the Far East include Malaysia, Indonesia, and Vietnam.
Although the above-mentioned countries are known for their interest in large sized fruit it was particularly encouraging to see their response on the smaller fruit sizes in particular to the Chinese market which offers very competitive returns for pears ranging from 80mm all the way down to 60mm.
During the 2023 season the first Celina was packed and exported early January. At the end of January Celina represented approximately 60% of the industry blush pear volumes exported to the Far Eastern markets. This enabled exporters to offer their customers a distinctive position in the market with the availability of some of the first blush pears from the 2023 South African season.
“Since the start we’ve seen a healthy growth in Forelle sales in the Chinese market and Celina offer the ability to extend the blush pear season earlier until the start of the Forelle season. We believe there is still significant room for growth in the Chinese market.” said Thomas Mouton of Core Fruit.
Besides the optimism surrounding Celina to the Far Eastern markets other destinations which have shown increased interest year on year include the United Kingdom, Portugal, Germany, Russia and the North American market and in particular Canada where we also see a strong performance on varieties such as Forelle later in the season.
With the planning of the 2024 season around the corner and the coming season seemingly approximately 10 days+ earlier there is reason to believe that the Celina’s will once again be in for yet another successful season.
For more information:
Waldo Maree
Stargrow
Email: [email protected]
