South Africa is likely to export only 11.8m cartons (15kg) of grapefruit this year compared with last year’s 15.3m cartons. This reflects a drop of 22 per cent compared with last year.
The latest reduction in the crop will particularly affect supplies to Japan. Exporters have warned that the size specification of the South African grapefruit crop is not ideal for supplying the Japanese market and total exports this season could be as low as 3m cartons.
A spokesperson for the Citrus Growers Association (CGA) said stocks of grapefruit in Japan in week 20 were at an all time low of only 349,000 cartons, which is less than two weeks of supply. “The previous lowest since 1995 was 817,000 in 2005 and there is considerable interest in the first four ships that have now been dispatched to Japan,” the spokesperson said.
“According to sources Florida grapefruit supplies to the EU have reduced to levels last seen in 2004/5. This, coupled with reduced shipments from Cyprus, static Turkish supply and modest increases from Spain and Israel, means that South Africa is entering an undersupplied market with fair returns to producers.”
The CGA said larger sized grapefruit were receiving a premium as smaller sizes seemed to be the norm. “Most grapefruit packhouses have been packing at speed to get through the grapefruit so that they can start on the mid-season fruit and Valencia crop. As a result packed figures to date are level pegging with 2011 packed figures.”
However, industry experts expect that the crop will end early and the CGA has advised buyers to stock up now rather than run the risk of running short on stock later in the season.
The South African soft citrus crop is also now lower than predicted earlier in the season. It is expected that 7.1m cartons will be exported compared to the forecast of 7.6m cartons and last year’s figure of 6.7m cartons.
The lemon forecast has dropped to 10.6m cartons compared with the forecast of 11.1m cartons and last year’s figure of 10.2m cartons. The navel season is just about to start, with the forecast being one million cartons less than the forecast of 22.9m cartons.
Valencia oranges, which is the biggest South African citrus category, is still forecasted at 46.1m cartons, with total exports now down to 97.5m cartons compared with the forecast of 102.9m cartons.
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