Exceptional mango production from Brazil
“The Brazilian mango season finished earlier than usual last year. It ended two weeks earlier with its last shipment. The enormous supply of mangoes from Brazil over the last two months has come to an end. It was exceptional - something we have not seen in previous years", says Joep Jongmans of the Belgian company, Special Fruit.
In the last two months of 2018, farmers in Brazil harvested large volumes of this fruit. They then sent the mangoes to Europe. There are now no more of these mangoes, which were also suitable for export. The season has since ended. "Usually, we switch to getting mangoes from Peru after the end of the Brazilian season. However, as a result of a somewhat delayed season, the Peruvian mangoes will only come onto the market next week. The growers' strikes also affected the availability of mangoes from this country." Early last month, the smaller mango producers in Peru's most important production area went on strike. They were of the opinion that they were receiving too-low prices for their mangoes. There have been consultations between these producers and the exporters. The situation has since returned to normal.
“Yet, the strike resulted in the first Kent mangoes arriving two weeks later than usual in Europe via sea freight. This delay caused problems as there was a gap in supply. In weeks 50 and 51 we still had enough mangoes. However, last week and this week, we were short", says Joep. Importers cannot switch to mangoes from other destinations. "Other countries have mangoes, but these are other kinds of mangoes. This is not really an alternative", says Jongmans. “Mangoes shipped via air freight are also a completely different product. These are in another price class."
"In the past few years, we have seen more mangoes being exported using air freight. These then come onto the market. The air freight mangoes were also delayed by the strike. Their supply got underway slowly. There was little air cargo capacity available in the last few weeks of the year. Connections were also missed. So, there was also little of that product available."
“The first of the sea freight mangoes from Peru will arrive in limited quantities this week. More volumes are expected in the second half of January. The new Peruvian mango season will only really get started then. Prices were rising at the end of last year. They were almost double that of market prices four weeks before this. Prices are expected to drop again after the first half of January", concludes Joep.
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