The European Union's imports from outside the trading bloc rose in the first four months of this year, with avocados, kale, garlic and bell peppers among the exceptional performers.

The EU imported more than €4 billion worth of fruit during the period representing growth of 5%, while extra-EU vegetable imports jumped 11% to €1.2 billion.

Fruit-by-fruit stats

Bananas accounted for more than a quarter of the fruit with a rise of 2% in value and 4% in volume, while fresh table grape imports dropped 7% to €626.8 million, along with a 6% fall in volume to 315,603MT.

Coming in third place were avocados, which in the first quarter of 2015 would not have made the top six.

This versatile fruit not only saw its volume increase by half to 123,352MT, but its value shot up 84% to €277 million pushing avocados ahead of pineapples, mangoes, melons and mandarins.

In fact, avocados managed to edge ahead despite import value increases for all these fruits except pineapples.

Import volumes of oranges and easy peelers rose at rates of 33% and 12% respectively, with the former's value increasing by a similar level while the latter had only a marginal increase in sales of 2%.

For the category 'Vaccinium', a genus which includes blueberries, value rose by 20% to €158 million.

Costa Rica was the top supplier in volume and saw a slight increase of 1%, but fell short of South Africa which was the leading exporter to the EU in terms of value with €541 million compared to the Central American country's €449.

Other key suppliers included Chile (+2%; €410 million), Colombia (+3%; €344 million), Ecuador (-8%; €315 million), Morocco (+29%; €274 million), Peru (+8%; €270 million), Brazil (+2%; €166 million) and Israel (-8%; €147 million).

The highest growth rates by country were for India rising 74% to €112 million, and Mexico which had a spurt of 57% to €90 million.

Veggies in-focus

While their growth rate may not have been as high in percentage terms, tomatoes stole the show in the vegetable category as the leading import crop with a 15% hike in volume (275,344MT) and an 11% rise in value (€278 million).

Fresh or chilled beans came in second place with an 8% increase to €210 million, but perhaps the most impressive on the list was the third-placed veggie import, peppers.

While pepper import volumes dropped 13% to 97,144MT, sales jumped by 21% to €172.5 million.

Import value rises were seen for most of the main vegetable categories that followed, with the exception of pumpkins and squash, leaks, and the 'other' category.

Garlic import values were up 57% at €43 million, which is likely partly explained by a 69% surge in import volumes from China which reached €34 million.

A significant uptick was also seen for the category that included cabbage and kale, up 56% at €15 million. In terms of volume, kale imports were up a whopping 116% year-on-year at 43,714MT, putting them ahead of carrots, cucumbers and asparagus.

The leading vegetable suppliers from outside the EU were Morocco (+11%; €464 million), Egypt (+15%; €115 million) and Turkey (+36%; €95 million).

As was the case in fruit, Israel's vegetable exports to the EU declined, but the drop was bigger in terms of volume at 28% compared to value at 12%.

Kenya saw a small rise of 3% to €58 million, while Peru saw a slight decline of 3% to €53 million.

Mexico saw increases across the board in produce, with vegetable exports to the EU up 19% at €25 million.

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