The total 2024 apple export volumes are projected at 48.42 million eq. cartons (12.5kg eq. cartons) which is 11% up compared to the previous season. Pear export volumes are projected at 20.06 million cartons (12.5kg eq. cartons); +8% year-on-year. This is a recovery on the 2023 season which was negatively impacted by weather conditions.
Apple varieties mostly affected were Fuji (-2% yoy); Pink Lady volumes were negatively affected by poor color development, down 10%. YTD inspection volumes in EGVV and Ceres regions are up 2% and 38% compared to the previous seasons (just keep the hail damage of last year in mind for Ceres indicating a recovery on the 2022 season). Far East & Asia is still the biggest export apple market with 33% of market share. India specifically has seen substantial growth in volumes, with just under 3mil apple cartons exported YTD compared to last year's 1.9mil eq. cartons (+55% yoy). Africa at 23% and the UK at 15% followed by the Middle East a 12%. YTD volumes exported to Europe and Russia have seen a noteworthy increase compared to the previous season.
Overall, the pear market is still positive. Europe is still our biggest export market with 34% of all exports. This is also a 25% increase year-on-year. Far East Asia and the Middle East are at 20% and 17% market shares respectively. Packham's Triumph had a lighter crop and was also impacted by the wet spring conditions resulting in russet. Forelle and Abate Fetel volumes realized better volumes and were respectively up by 19% by 26%. Summer pear exports also performed better than last year with significant increases in Rosemarie, Cheeky, Celina, and Comice.
Apricots (2023/24 season): Total export volumes = 480 00 eq. cartons (4.75kg/eq. carton) were down by 19% from the previous season. This is the second-lowest export crop of apricots in the last 15 years. The biggest production area (Klein Karoo) had frost damage that had a huge impact on the overall export crop. The decreasing planting trend that has been experienced since 2000 has stabilized over the last 3 seasons with a slight increase in plantings of fresh apricots, mostly late varieties. The issue with apricots from an industry perspective remains that it has a very short season and supply window with the bulk of the product exported from Week 44 to week 49. We have seen some investments in later varietals – however, compared to the total export crop these volumes remain low. The majority of the volumes were exported to the Middle East (51%), Europe (26%), and the UK (22%). 19% were exported via airfreight where it can generally be anticipated that this product would have had fewer quality issues resulting from delays in logistics.
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