These are challenging times in the Pakistani mango sector, with industry leaders appearing in the press to criticise the state of
the industry.
Airfreight costs and a lack of adequate airport storage facilities are particularly curtailing Pakistani mango exports, according to media reports in the country.
Ahmad Jawad, chief executive of Pakistani exporter Harvest Tradings, told the Business Recorder that while domestic mango production was likely to climb to 1.5 million tonnes this season, the constraints meant exports may not exceed 150,000 tonnes.
“It is required that the country should be exporting double the target quantity – at least 25 per cent of the total production – but the prevailing infrastructure is highly insufficient,” Jawad said.
According to Jawad, it is common for airlines to significantly raise freight costs after the beginning of the Pakistani mango season.
He also suggested that the country’s two major airports, Karachi and Lahore, were not equipped to store mango exports, with flight delays often affecting the quality
of shipments.
Jawad said delays of more than 12 hours can cause a whole shipment to go stale. As a precaution, exporters are not sending fully ripe fruit, driving down market prices.
The issue is unfortunate at a time when consumers are getting a taste for the fruit and supermarkets are willing to back Pakistan as a supplier. In March Asda, the UK’s second-largest grocery retailer, revealed plans to increase its Pakistani mango imports this season in response to strong
consumer demand.
Dean Hayden, senior buyer at Asda, told Fruitnet that the Wal-Mart subsidiary expected to import 4,000-6,000 cartons per week throughout June, with volumes picking up during Ramadan in July.
“Pakistani mangoes have proved very popular with our customers,” he said. “We were the first major retailer to offer the highly-coveted fruit to shoppers in 2011, and we continue to work with a small group of growers who have GlobalGAP certification, which complies with our food safety standards. We are also looking at the possibility of sourcing further products from the region in the future.”
The news was welcomed by Pakistan’s fruit and vegetable exporters’ association, whose chairman, Waheed Ahmed, wants to boost the value of Pakistan’s mango exports to over $1 billion by 2018 by accessing new markets and developing value-added lines. —
