The South African citrus season is once again headed for the ‘duty deadline’ of 15 October. Eddy Kreukniet of Exsa Europe gives us an update about the season, and looks ahead as well. “The new plantings of tangerines and lemons in particular could just result in a growth of 15 to 20 per cent. The question is how the market will respond to this. Diversification to other markets seems necessary in any case. This year, the Asian market, which usually gets the best fruit, did well again, but they’re not getting large volumes. Markets such as the Middle East and Russia are experiencing a similar tendency as Europe.”
For this season, the season for the lemon exporters was very successful. “Argentina had to deal with shortages, and South Africa filled that gap. Because of this, the market became much better than everyone initially thought it would be, and in the end, South Africa sent 33 per cent more lemons to Europe,” Eddy says. “We’ve now entered the final weeks of the season, and the market is decreasing as a result of the Turkish and Spanish arrivals.”
However, not everything was golden in South African citrus. “The consumption of grapefruit and tangerines was quite negatively affected by the warm weather this summer. Now that schools have started again, the market is recovering, but July and August were tough months for these products. South African growers who didn’t grow a mix of products, could be headed for a particularly difficult year.”
“The orange market has been very stable for both regular and pressing oranges up till now. Traditionally we see a bit more supply as we head towards 15 October, which is necessary to serve programmes after the duty deadline. We’ll now have to wait and see how the market will respond to these additional volumes,” Eddy continues. “It’s positive that people in South Africa have Black Spot under control, considering the number of discoveries. However, a number of FCM discoveries were made, but South Africa responded pro-actively to this with cold treatments. This shows that it’s been good and necessary that people went down this road.”
Organic citrus isn’t part of Exsa’s assortment yet. “Although the market for organic citrus is also growing in a stable manner, it requires a lot from growers, and combined with the lower yield it should come with a higher cost price to compensate for the efforts of the growers. We’ve therefore chosen ‘chem free’ citrus, which means no wax is added post-harvest, to lemons in particular, because skins of these are often used. At the same time, it’s an ideal route for us to meet MRL requirements of discount formulas,” Eddy concludes.
For more information:
Eddy Kreukniet
Exsa Europe
Tel: +31 88 735 0003
Mob: +31 620 25 78 11
[email protected]
www.exsaeurope.com