Exports to North American markets continue to grow as European markets start strong
It has been a positive start to the South African table grape export season with good harvesting conditions and logistics operating smoothly.
The national crop forecast remains unchanged at 76.4mn cartons. As of Week 5, 79 per cent of volume was exported to the EU and the UK, as well as 11 per cent to North America.
This confirms pre-season predictions of the growing role the US market will play in South African table grape exports.
Conversely, shipments from South Africa to Asia have decreased. This is due to bigger volumes of competitively priced grapes from other table grape regions being available.
As of Week 4, 47.2mn cartons have been inspected for export aligning with last year’s progress. Of this, 34.64mn cartons have been shipped, which is 14 per cent more than the previous season to date and indicates a smoother export logistics situation than at the same time last year.
Feedback from production regions also indicates grapes are arriving at export destinations earlier than in the previous season due to improved port logistics.
“Performance at the Cape Town Container Terminal measured in terms of gross crane moves per hour (GCH) has decreased compared with previous weeks but remains above the previous season’s performance,” said SATI.
The early regions in the North of the country and the Orange River are basically at the end of their harvest. This leaves the two late regions of the Berg River and the Hex River Valley for the remainder of the season.
SATI says the movement of fruit and sales rate in the UK has been good in general, however some stock build-up was observed in Weeks 03 and 04.
The arrival quality of fruit to the UK has been better than in the past couple of years, facilitated by better weather during packing and timely shipping. The EU market has held stronger and for a more extended period than most years, especially for red seedless varieties.
Sale rates in the EU have been sufficient to move the volumes received with some planned retail promotions on white seedless especially assisting in moving big arrivals of white punnets from all origins in arrival Weeks 1 and 2.
