South Africa's Soft Citrus Focus Group recently reduced its season forecast by 400,000 cartons, taking the expected total to 9.6 million cartons for the campaign.

In a summary released by the Citrus Growers Association of Southern Africa (CGA) in an industry newsletter, CEO Justin Chadwick said clementine forecasts were now "well off" the originally estimated three million cartons, down some 500,000 cartons.

Additionally, finalized satsuma shipments fell 100,000 cartons short of the 1.8 million cartons initially estimated.

In contrast, the forecasts for the category "other mandarins" are up 200,000 cartons at 5.4 million cartons.

The EU's share of South African easy peeler exports has grown from 58% to 64% this year, mainly due to a lower share going to Asia, down six percentage points at 7%. The Middle East's market share is three percentage points lower at 7%.

While soft citrus forecasts may have dropped, the CGA's Lemon Focus Group has lifted expectations by 200,000 cartons to 13.8 million cartons, at a time when the sour fruit is achieving sweet returns in destination markets.

Chadwick attributed the positive lemon earnings to the fact that like in 2014, South African exports were ahead of the Argentine competition, and Southern Hemisphere shipments were "still appreciably less" than 2011 and 2013 levels.

Tracking the season

In terms of the season's progress, grapefruit exports are almost complete at the end of week 27 with some 200,000 cartons left to ship, but significant volumes were still in the pipeline for other citrus categories.

Just over 60% of the expected soft citrus volumes had been shipped, there were still more than four million cartons of lemons to go, and Navels had passed the halfway mark at 12.8 million cartons.

South Africa's leading citrus category Valencias, which account for 44% of the total, were still in the initial stages with only 6% of the season's expected volume shipped.

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