The supply of white dragon fruit continues to be sporadic. "It's been like this for the last couple of months. It's been an unusual year and nothing like the year it was before," says Alan Goldberg of A&B Tropical Produce.
Indeed, 2022 and 2023 saw an extreme oversupply of the unique fruit that is shipping from Ecuador at the moment. "The market got so bad that a lot of farmers pulled out and a lot of growers didn't reinvest into their crops and let some of the plantations go. It resulted in a lot less volume," says Goldberg, adding that before last year, there was also no production of Ecuadorian dragon fruit in the summer. He does add though that the growers who have remained are still producing quality fruit.
Subsequently, prices have not increased to where they had been before that event which was roughly March 2023. Before then, prices were in the high $20s-low $30s and those numbers haven't been reached since.
For fruit arriving by boat, that means that right now there's production moving forward every few weeks for the next couple of months. Some higher priced fruit is also arriving by air.
Domestic season begins
At the same time, the Florida dragon fruit season is about to get underway.
However, Goldberg is also concerned about demand, which is on the softer side. Normally, with the combination of Florida product, demand is generally healthier at this time of year.
"This could be because of the economy," says Goldberg, noting that pricing is also softer. "Prices went below $10 when that oversupply happened in 2023 and that hurt a lot of growers with those returns. Plus, everything costs so much more to produce now–those costs have more than doubled."
Right now, depending on size, the market is between $14-$18. "I think it's going to be tough to do any better than that," he says, noting that Florida has also expanded where it's producing dragon fruit which is now throughout the state. He also adds that growers from major cities such as New York are also growing their fruit in Florida. "That doesn't give us a clear picture of the market," he says.
For more information:
Alan Goldberg
A&B Tropical Produce
+1 (305) 805-1530
[email protected]
www.abtropical.com