A healthy crop of South African citrus on its way to the U.S., according to a June 27 release from the Capetown-based marketing organization, Summer Citrus from South Africa (SCSA). This is the country’s 25th season shipping citrus to the U.S.

SCSA offers its positive take despite some substantial weather issues.

Record rainfall, compared to year to date with the last decade, has plagued the Western Cape. 

SCSA adds, “Regarding the supply-chain system, certain timing adjustments were made to specific vessels to accommodate for the weather, which is very typical for our sophisticated shipping program. The reality is we are working with a commodity that has an ever-changing life cycle and rainfall can change the timing of loading vessels as well as the picking of the fruit. 

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The Citrusdal area, which is the Western Cape’s primary citrus production area, was without electricity for a few days, which has since been restored. In the week of June 19, access to certain roads and orchards was also a challenge last week. These have been fixed.

“We since have had some sunny days, and growers were able to pick a healthy amount of fruit.” The prediction is that year to date, South Africa Citrus will be slighted ahead of estimated shipments by the end of this week, as well as the year-to-date figures of 2022.

“We entered the US market with limited volumes shipped on the MSC Shirley towards the end of May and slowly gained momentum towards the end of this month with more container vessels. From now on we will have weekly arrivals of conventional and/or container vessels into the Port of Philadelphia.”