Several citrus exporters to China have told FreshPlaza they have found it difficult to procure South African citrus for Asian markets. In a season of large fruit and lower than expected yields, citrus producers were under pressure to service their European programmes, given high black spot incidences plus the market opportunities created in Europe by a short Spanish crop.
“Over the last few weeks, though, it’s felt like guys have been supporting South East Asia to a greater extent,” says a China-focused exporter who asks not to be named. “But up until now it has been a real struggle to get fruit – on oranges, specifically, the sizing was a challenge. On the 77s, 88s and 105s we competed with the Middle East and Europe. What we saw from those two regions was very strong demand and that buyers were willing to push up prices, while in Asia pricing wasn’t quite as aggressive.”
At the moment exporters are packing the last fruit for arrival ahead of the Mid-Autumn festival. End of August and beginning September is the sales window for which they plan all year.
Asian sales are driven by late navels (South African cultivars Cambria, Witkrans and Rustenburg), Midknight Valencias and Nadorcotts, but if fruit arrives after the important festival in the Chinese calendar which falls on 29 September this year, it coincides with the holiday period and a hard brake on fruit sales.
Moreover, in October China’s domestic soft citrus harvest commences.
South African Cambria navels at the Guangzhou market
Citrus sales to the East on downward trend
The exporter remarks that their company and the industry as a whole have year-on-year shipped less citrus to China and to other Asian countries.
And only a few years ago China was regarded as the apex market for South African fruit. The exporter is quite sure that the reason lies in Covid.
“The post-Covid effect has been more tangible this year than the previous two or so years. I think it’s been a combination of what’s going on in the markets, what is available and whether the pull from other markets is stronger. And there’s always a risk in sending to China with the steri protocol: if you run into a problem with China, where do you take the fruit? So exporters often turn to easier markets like the Middle East.”
When the shipping regime for lemons to China eased, he says, the industry through it was a silver bullet but China is in fact self-sufficient in lemons. Therefore only limited numbers of South African lemons have gone to China.
Grapefruit: sombre outlook
“For China we did limited volumes on select spec grapefruit, but I have to say it didn’t shoot out the lights. Our receiver tells us that the demand for fresh grapefruit has changed a lot. A lot now goes into processing, for instance into bubble tea programmes.”
Another specialist in the trade with China says they used to do between 30 to 35 containers of grapefruit to China, but this season only five containers due to lower demand.
He agrees that the Chinese economy is under pressure.
South African grapefruit producers decided not to export any processing grade fruit, not marginal counts, but nevertheless the grapefruit prices in China (except for one or two weeks at the start) never really got going, remaining at 100 to 130 renminbi per 15kg carton.
Worryingly, the Japanese too seem to be eating less grapefruit. Exporters estimate a 25% drop in grapefruit demand from Japan, while mealybug rejections on the South African reduced the amount of grapefruit arriving in South Korea.
The north stopped exporting grapefruit early on in the season, incentivized too by a firm juice price.