Lime Update
With the rains over the past week, limes are maturing and yellowing quickly. This is causing a rush to pick them off the trees. The 21 day look back shows volume of 602 loads two weeks ago, growing to 698 loads and now 736 loads for the last 7 days reported. We expect this surge in volume to last for a couple of weeks and to be followed by a lack of volume in October and November due to the poor health of the trees following such a long drought prior to this weeks’ rain. The overall quality and condition of the crop is poor relative to what Mexico normally produces. Sizing is very concentrated on small sizes. You can expect shorter shelf life than normal and quickly yellowing fruit in general due to the weakened health of the drought stricken trees. The market is long on 230s and 250s and we are looking for quick promos to move through it in the next week or two.
The number of stores on ad on limes fell from 1,942 last week to 355 stores for the week ending 9/19 at an average retail price of $0.34 per unit. There were only 12 stores on an organic lime ads at $2.99 per pound according to the USDA specialty crop market news survey of more than 400 retailers.
Mango Crop Update
We are ending week 37 today. Volumes are still relatively strong out of Mexico as you can see in the Arrival Volume Chart below. Daily crossing have averaged around 56 loads per day the last 7 days reported so this is still near peak volume from Northern Sinaloa. This volume will start to fall next week and the HWT plants should all be closed in Southern Sinaloa. The Mexican Keitt sizing is enormous as shown in table below with 6s being the peak size, followed by 5s and then 4s. Eating quality is great but appearance is declining with heavy lenticel freckling and skin abrasions and sap burn being significant detractors on appearance. Demand is incredibly strong and there is very little excess fruit laying around without commitments already on it. Market is wide ranging from $5.00 to $7.00 generally.
Brazil is ramping up packing. We have very high confidence in the accuracy of our projections below for what Brazil will ship this season. The peak arrivals will be the vessels of weeks 40, 41, and 42. Although the Arrival Volume chart shows the Total Round volume available in the country being a million boxes less than where we are today, Amazon will have plenty of fruit to supply its customers due to the strength of our Brazil program, so please contact us about promoting red mangos through October with loading starting with the vessel of October 4th for promotions. Quality has been fantastic on early arrivals and we expect this to continue. Sizing has been large peaking on 9s, then 8s on the first vessels with very few 12s and no 14s but we expect this to shift to a more balanced distribution with 9s/10s being the peak as we get into the heart of the season. Please let us know if you are interested in Kent/Keitt/Palmer fibreless mangos from Brazil. We can bring some volume as long as we can compete on pricing to the grower with the Europe market.
One Ecuador grower has started picking Ataulfos, but our growers are warning us that this is very premature and that volume of properly mature round fruit will be very delayed this year. Flowering was weeks behind last year and the weather is still seeing cool nights which slows growth and maturity. See the Ecuador early season projection below. We don’t expect Ecuador to get going in volume on round mangos until right about Thanksgiving creating a high volume peak between Thanksgiving and Christmas. Please plan to take advantage of that volume in the week 48 to 52 time frame this year. Honey Mangos (Ataulfos) are earlier than the round varieties. You can see in the Arrival Volume Chart that we expect some decent supplies in late October so retailers can plan to reactivate that item code.
Stores on ad on conventional mangos fell from 4,411 stores to 2,794 stores on ad for the week ending 9/19. Weighted average retail price was $1.12 per piece. Stores on organic mango ads fell from 211 last week to 156 stores this coming week with an average retail price of $2.23 each. See the USDA Data on Retail Mango Ads chart below for detailed data by geographic region of the country.
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