The lime market in Europe seems to be recovering after a long time of varying quality, says Audrik Victoria, who works for Portuguese produce importer and exporter Natural Import: "For the last couple of months, the quality of limes arriving from Brazil into the European market isn't stable. There are still some low-quality limes in the market. These ones are facing a hard time being sold, since the general market is willing to pay more for better quality limes. For those who hopped that the market would absorb all qualities of lime without hesitation, these people now find themselves in difficult position."
Victoria is happy to see that despite constant supply, the demand is high enough to absorb all incoming shipments. "Until Christmas ends, we expect sales of limes to be as stable as it is right now. There are some containers arriving at a nonstop pace, but the demand and consumption is high enough to absorb this supply. This will help us avoid the situation that we found ourselves in October, when there were so many limes available, that also lacked quality, and no one wanted to buy them because of that."
Prices for limes are increasing, but Victoria would rather see a stable price until the holiday season is over: "In the last week the prices have risen steadily. We hope the price will remain firm at least until the end of the year. To us, having stable prices with constant arrivals of new limes is more important than trying to capitalize on huge demands in a market that is flooded with older limes. This type of business generates a lot of logistical problems for both us and the clients."
Next to the limes, Natural Import also imports lychees from the Brazilian market. "We hope that the Brazilian lychees will make a huge come back by the end of this year. Brazilian lychees have to compete with those form Madagascar, China and South Africa. Nevertheless, we expect that the Brazilian lychee will outsell the competing origins, due to Brazil being the only country to export organic lychee, containing no sulphur."
"In the next weeks, we at Natural Import, not only expect to remain a strong player in the limes market of Europe, but also to be more active in other markets, such as mangos, lychees and also ginger. Limes will remain one of our main exported fruits, but with the holiday season coming up, sales will take a hit, which is normal for this time of year," Victoria concludes.
For more information:
Audrik Victoria
Natural Import
Tel: +351 932 732 983
Email: [email protected]
www.naturalimportpt.com