In this installment of the ‘Agronometrics In Charts’ series, Sarah Ilyas studies the state of the Peruvian grape season. 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 ongoing Peruvian table grape season continues to exhibit noteworthy shifts in varietal composition. According to Agraria.pe, the Sweet Globe cultivar has emerged as the most prominent variety exported during this season.
The data reveals that a staggering 16 million 18-pound boxes have been shipped thus far, denoting an impressive year-on-year increase of nearly 40% compared to the 11.5 million boxes exported in the previous season of 2021-22. Consequently, Sweet Globe has surpassed the market-dominant Red Globe by a margin exceeding 2 million boxes.
“I have been analyzing the statistics of Peruvian table grape exports since I practiced in Information while studying agronomy more than 20 years ago. For the first time the Red Globe leaves the first place to give it to Sweet Globe,” says Benjamín Cilloniz, General Manager of Exportadora Safco Peru S.A. Autumn Crisp and Allison varieties have also attained high export figures of 6.8 million and 5.9 million boxes respectively in the 2022-23 season.
Source: USDA Market News via Agronometrics.“When the new varieties arrived into the industry, Peru reached its highest volume of approximately 21 million boxes of Red Globe, pushing the prices down in every market. Red Globe was a very good option because it had higher productions than traditional seedless varieties and prices were not bad, ” says Cilloniz.
Source: USDA Market News via Agronometrics.The occurrence of adverse weather conditions, logistical challenges, and political issues during the latter part of 2022 and early 2023 has resulted in business losses. Safco Peru estimates that approximately 700,000 boxes were forfeited due to blockades in the Ica region in January, while a significant but indeterminate quantity of grapes intended for late harvest in Piura were also compromised due to heavy rainfall over an extended period of more than a month.
Considering these developments, a continued decline in demand is expected for traditional grape varieties, Safco Peru concurrently anticipates a surge in the popularity of green licensed varieties, primarily driven by the considerable growth of the Autumn Crisp cultivar.
According to the second crop estimate provided by the Peruvian Association of Table Grape Producers and Exporters (Provid) for the 2022-2023 season, it is projected that exports will reach 73 million boxes, reflecting a year-on-year increase of 13%.
“It is expected that traditional varieties will continue to decline in the coming seasons while licensed green varieties will continue to increase, driven by a significant growth of Autumn Crisp. As everything in this life is cyclical, it should not be long until the red grapes are the ones that are missing,” predicts Cilloniz.
Source: USDA Market News via Agronometrics.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.
