The pandemic means fewer flights are arriving in New Zealand, and ships are often facing weeks of delays before getting there. According to industry group United Fresh president Jerry Prendergast, that was resulting in gaps in the market: "We would have traditionally had mangoes, for example, out of South America. There's a mango season where you'd be pulling tremendous amount of volume in container shipments but because we're not sure of its arrival dates, because there's so many delays and uncertainties, we're simply not taking the risk and bringing that product in."
Prendergast said some importers were trying to get fruit on planes but that was not proving very reliable either. Rnz.co.nz quoted him as saying: "Most importers are looking at every option that's available to them, air freight also has issues because there's simply not as many flights as normal coming into the country. We are seeing grapes being brought in by air freight, which we haven't traditionally seen in this country for a number of years, so when you see product that's airfreighted in you will see a higher price on that product compared to sea freight.”
