In this installment of the ‘Agronometrics In Charts’ series, Valeria Concha studies the latest projection of Chilean Table Grape exports. 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.

The ASOEX Table Grape Committee has released a third forecast of exports of grapes for this 2022-2023 season. In its third projection, the Committee foresees reaching 66,920,661 boxes, a figure 10% lower than shipments last season, and 2.5% lower than what was projected by the entity last October (second estimate).

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

In this respect, Iván Marambio, president of ASOEX explained that the decrease is due, especially, to a change in varieties that the industry has been promoting for some time now, more than 50% of exports will be of new varieties. In the case of Red Globe, this will fall by 25% compared to what was shipped last season. According to figures published by Uvanova, during the 2021/2022 season, protected varieties accounted for 43% of Chilean exports.

Among the new varieties, the red ones will lead the shipments, where Timco, Allison and Sweet Celebration will likely stand out. This is followed by the white varieties, especially ARRA 15, Timpson and Sweet Globe. Finally, there are the new black varieties, led by Sweet Favours, Sable Seedless and Sweet Saphire.

As far as destinations are concerned, Ignacio Caballero, Coordinator of the Committee, commented that the United States will continue to be the main destination, estimating that around 40 million boxes will be destined for this market, around 59.7% of the estimate. The rest will go to Asia, Europe and other destinations such as Latin America and the Middle East.

According to the Committee's plan, a fourth estimate will be delivered at the end of December, as these will fluctuate based on external variables that affect the volume, availability, dates and destinations of the grapes, such as weather conditions, freight, availability of workers and other global logistical variables external to the sector.

Currently, the supply of table grapes in the US market is mostly from California, which is shipping storage products. According to the USDA's Grape Cold Storage Summary, as of November 15, there were around 10.1 million boxes. This is 3% lower from the quantity recorded at the same time last year and 18% down from 2020.

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

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.

All pricing for domestic US produce represents the spot market at Shipping Point (i.e. packing house/climate controlled warehouse, etc.). For imported fruit, the pricing data represents the spot market at Port of Entry.

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 21 commodities we currently track.