A backlog of grapes has built up in Shanghai after a flood of Chilean arrivals over recent weeks that came in the wake of the end to the South American country’s port strikes in April.
Speaking last week, Kurt Huang of Shanghai Longwu Imported Fruit and Vegetable Wholesale Market said that around 200 container loads of Chilean grapes arrived in Shanghai in week 22.
“There were around four or five vessels that all arrived at the same time,” said Huang. “A lot of them are still in the container yard because there is not enough cold storage capacity to put them all in stock.”
Unsurprisingly, the glut of fruit has heaped pressure on the market.
“The price for grapes is very poor and the movement is slow,” said Huang. “We’ve seen grapes start selling for under Yn100 (US$16.30) per carton for the fruit with some quality issues. The bigger, firmer grapes are fetching Yn120-130 per carton.”
California cherry imports to Shanghai have also witnessed a sharp increase in recent weeks, according to Huang.
“Last May, we took around 337 air pallets [of California cherries], whereas this May we’ve received over 1,000 pallets, so the volume has trebled.”
In contrast to the grape market, the cherry deal has been fairly steady, however. “The CIF price [on California cherries] has come down by around US$5-8 compared with last year, but whereas last year traders made a loss, this year they have been breaking even or turning a small profit because the overall quality is better than last year.”
Huang added that while the first shipments of Northwest cherries arrived in Shanghai last week, the CIF price was higher than Californian fruit, but the quality was no better because the shipments were early varieties.
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