The South African table grape industry continues to face challenges that have affected exports up to week five.

The country has packed over 7 million more cartons year-on-year, but has shipped 4.9 million cartons fewer to international markets.

The delays in the Port of Cape Town are "still a challenge and of major concern".

Table grape exports to the EU up to week five are down almost 4 million cartons year-on-year while the U.K. is seeing a decrease of 1.8 million cartons.

The crop estimate has changed slightly as the Northern Provinces and Olifants River regions experienced challenging weather conditions adjusting the estimate for these two regions downwards.

On the other hand, the estimate for the Orange River region was adjusted upwards as it has already exceeded the upper limit of the estimated 21.2 million cartons.

Prospects for the Berg and Hex River regions are very favorable and are expected to reach and possibly even exceed the upper limit of their estimates.

The adjustments made to the first crop estimate does not have a significant effect on the national estimate.

It saw a raise in the lower limit from 70.6 million cartons to 72.8 million cartons and the upper limit unchanged at 77.7 million cartons.

The Northern Provinces packing season is drawing to a close with only small quantities of Crimson and Autumn Crisp still to be packed during the next week.

The Orange River region is in the last few weeks of full scale packing and the Blouputs area has already wrapped up its season.

A heatwave together with general climate challenges caused a decrease of about 25% in production volumes in certain cases from the Olifants River region.

The crop estimate for the region has therefore been adjusted slightly downwards to a low limit of 3.1 and a higher limit of 3.4 million cartons.