South Africa's grapefruit exports could potentially drop by 22 per cent this year. The market is likely to export only 11.8m cartons of grapefruit this year compared with last year’s 15.3m cartons.
The latest reduction in the crop will particularly affect supplies to Japan as the size specification of the South African grapefruit crop is not ideal for supplying the Japanese market.
A spokesperson for the Citrus Growers Association (CGA) said stocks of grapefruit in Japan for 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.
The South African lemon forecast has also dipped below expectations, dropping 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.
