Shipments, fruit quality and expected returns in a complete audiovisual work carried out by the Smartcherry team.
“It was a great year” commented Isabel Quiroz, founder and director of iQonsulting, in the framework of the recent report "Rx to the season: Commercial balance to the 2023-2024 cherry campaign"; and how could it be otherwise, if after several complex seasons, this one had an unexpected turn with returns to producers that had not been seen for several years.
«In the last season 2023-2024 Chile exported 414,300 tons of cherries to the world, however this world is quite reduced because 91 percent of them went to China; even though everyone thought that it was going to be smaller, or that at the beginning Chile's export was going to be even larger, the changes were caused by the climate; finally we ended up with a season with the same volume as the previous season, it was only 0.01 percent larger than last season,» commented Isabel Quiroz.
Chilean cherry shipments to the Asian giant set a new record, with 9 percent more fruit shipped to China compared to last season.
"(…) that is the big news, so all the behavior, that we can do, all the analysis has to refer to China, because that 9 percent is distributed in several other countries, therefore they are still very small volumes to be compared with the great market that is China", added the founder of iQonsulting.
Returns
In the recently released report, the general manager and founding partner of the Blossom exporter, referred to the returns of the season. The feeling of fruit shortage, due to agro-climatic problems, generated an immediate response in the Chinese markets.
«That helped a lot to move the air part, which is always good, which is the fruit that is sold during November, but it helped a lot to the sales in December; when the fruit arrives by boat, I always say that the fruit that is sold on December 20 is fruit harvested on November 20, it is more or less a month between harvest and sale; indeed, a feeling of scarcity was generated in December that helped a lot in the prices; the prices of the packed fruit in November were very good, much better than last year and then during January normal prices, prices of 380-360 Yuan for Super Jumbo sizes, with returns of USD 4.5-5 to the producer», explained Alfonso Frías, general manager of Blossom.
Returns were recorded well above those achieved in recent seasons; demand was such that even before the Chinese New Year, the supply of Chilean cherries in the Asian giant's markets ran out and they had to wait for the arrival of a new ship, days before the holiday, to restart the distribution and sales of this fruit species.
«And coming to the end of the season, approaching the Chinese New Year, very good Regina arrived, very good Lapins; it was fruit that did not come with any damage from the rains, the volumes began to rise, but obviously the increase in demand during the Chinese New Year helped to sell all the fruit, 100 percent of the fruit was sold, at least from the central zone, before February 10, and with super good returns to the producer. This was a year like never before for the Regina variety», added Frias.
To India in record time
Another significant aspect of the recent season was the arrival, for the first time, of a ship with Chilean cherries to India in less than 40 days, as announced by Claudia Soler, Executive Director of the Chilean Fruit Cherry Committee.
«There was a ship that arrived in India in 36 days, which is a milestone for our sector and it arrived with very good quality fruit, so clearly that kick-starts the further development of this market, because one of the limitations that this market had was a logistical issue, which was the days of transit that were more than 40 days, and with the work done by the committee and the sector as a whole, we managed to have ships that went directly to India with only one stop; in the case of this ship, it stopped in Nansha and then continued to India arriving in 36 days, so it is very positive», concluded Claudia Soler.
This report was sponsored by Anasac, Empack, Surlogística and Agrarian.
