In this installment of the ‘Agronometrics In Charts’ series, Colin Fain illustrates how the U.S. market is evolving. Each week the series looks at a different horticultural commodity, focusing on a specific origin or topic visualizing the market factors that are driving change.

In this week’s installment, we will take a look at strawberries exports from Mexico to the U.S. market in the past and today. 

Mexico is the largest supplier of strawberries to the U.S. market, accounting for more than 10 percent of all imported strawberries so far this year.

In 2000, Mexico exported 74 million kilograms of strawberries to the U.S., with this figure rising to 320 million kg in 2019. This shows a 430 percent increase in the last 20 years.

The U.S. market has been able to absorb this supply from Mexico, which is shown when talking about prices in a graph below.

Historical volumes of Mexican strawberries in the U.S. market (kg)

(Source: USDA Market News via Agronometrics) [Agronometrics users can view this chart with live updates here]

Regarding this season, which began in September, Mexico has exported the highest volumes in comparison to the last six seasons year-on-year.

Volumes of Mexican strawberries in the U.S. market

(Source: USDA Market News via Agronometrics) [Agronometrics users can view this chart with live updates here]

With respect to previous prices of Mexican strawberries in the U.S. market, we can say that these prices have remained fairly constant with a slight upward trend over the last 20 years. 

This shows that the U.S. market has been able to absorb the large volumes of fruit coming from Mexico, always closely related to the volumes from Florida and southern California, Mexico’s main competitors.

The average price per kilogram of strawberries in 2019 was $4.39 per kg, a 12 percent increase from 2019, where the average price was $3.93 per kg. 

It is interesting to add that the prices of Mexican strawberries are generally above the average prices in the U.S. market.

Price (USD/KG) of Mexican strawberries in the U.S. market

(Source: USDA Market News via Agronometrics) [Agronometrics users can view this chart with live updates here]

Strawberries are a staple in the North American diet, and it seems that the prices are mainly regulated by volume variations, instead of by consumption. 

This fruit is also very sensitive to weather problems and quite immune to the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic.

In our ‘In Charts’ series, we work to tell some of the stories that are moving the industry. Feel free to take a look at the other articles by clicking here.

You can keep track of the markets daily through Agronometrics, a data visualization tool built to help the industry make sense of the huge amounts of data that professionals need to access to make informed decisions. If you found the information and the charts from this article useful, feel free to visit us at www.agronometrics.com where you can easily access these same graphs, or explore the other 20 fruits we currently track.