Chile wrapped up its remaining grape shipments last week. "About 95 percent of arrivals was already done," says Franco Pruzzo of Summit Produce Inc.
These last shipments are the newer, later varieties. "Chile's new varieties have been supplying the back end of the deal. This has changed the market dynamic for the late Chilean import grape business for April and May compared to recent years. During a time where green availability is typically limited, this season you can find some of the very best Autumn Crisp and Sweet Globes for green seedless," says Pruzzo. (Three or four years ago, this market window almost only offered storage Thompson grapes for greens.) On reds, Sweet Celebration, Crimson, Allison, Scarlotta, Timco, and Red Globes will be available from now until mid-June.
From Chile, it was a late season for grapes and this was driven mostly by weather and new green grape varieties expressing full production in some vineyards. While the northern part of Chile saw an early start, central and southern Chile started 15-20 days later than usual. This means that instead of larger volumes arriving from mid-March until April 10th, which is the marketing order date, this year close to 14 million boxes arrived from April 10 until May 10th this week– which is +150 percent compared to last year.
Creating a new window
This pattern of late-running Chilean grapes is likely to become a new market pattern of inbounds, especially given growers in the country have largely pulled out traditional varieties in favor of newer ones. "So instead of big volumes arriving in March, the U.S. market will start receiving more volume between April to May from Chile," says Pruzzo. That also means the varieties will largely be the Autumn Crisp and Sweet Globe on greens, which are the preferred varieties.
Overall, this year Chile will reach 63-64 million cartons total of grape exports to all markets, and of that, 38-39 million will eventually arrive into the U.S. That is quite different from the 2023 season which saw short supply. Last year, the country exported 60 million boxes, and of that, 29 million were shipped to the U.S.
This year the grape market has been a good one and steady since Summit Produce started with Brazilian and Peruvian grapes in November–the latter country also began shipping early from the north this season as well as the south. "It's been a good season for demand on grapes," says Domenic Russo, VP of sales for Summit Produce Inc. "The market isn't used to having good Chilean grapes this late. This is the first season that we're seeing that, and this is going to be the future for Chile."
Stronger 2024 pricing
All of this has created strong grape pricing, even with the inconsistencies of the volumes coming into the U.S. Peru and Chile's early starts left a gap between those two countries. Then, another gap occurred during the transition from early starting northern Chile to late starting mid to southern Chile, with the bulk of the volume coming late from the central Southern region. "Pricing is just now stabilizing with Mexico starting in a few weeks and a lot of shippers trying to get out of their older inventories," says Russo. Although some shippers moving to newer varieties are still receiving good-quality fruit.
Meanwhile, Brazil, which had heavy rains in March on its largely green grape production, saw damage to some of its fruit which also boded well for Chilean production. Few growers from Peru had a second crop this year, which factored in the typical supply of greens during mid-April – mid-May.
So where does all of this leave the transition to the Mexican season? "Growers will start scratching sometime this week but the real volume from Mexico will not be until after Memorial Day," says Russo. "They won't have enough volume to fully supply the U.S. until after the 27th."
Mexico is expecting to produce between 22-24 million boxes this season. "They are going to be early, so we'll see if that happens," says Russo. Meanwhile, Coachella Valley is expected to start with red grapes between May 15-18 and greens 10 days later. "That crop is also late by five to seven days," says Russo, adding that there should not be a gap between Chilean grapes and Mexican grapes this season.
For more information:
Franco Pruzzo
Domenic Russo
Summit Produce Inc.
Tel: +1 (559) 369-4020
[email protected]
[email protected]
https://www.summitproduceinc.com/