The main supplier of limes for the European market at this time of year is Brazil. In addition, smaller volumes come from Peru, Colombia and Vietnam. For the US, Mexico is, as always, the dominant player. The supply is supplemented with product from Central America, mainly Guatemala and Honduras.
“Colombia is increasing supply to around 100 loads per week, which is a large volume for Europe, but for the US it is around 15% of imports. Peru is supplying around 25 loads per week to the US,” said Rob Cullum of Pacific Produce.
“The US market has been good in recent months and it will be even better until mid-April. That is because Mexico is currently in the low season. The return to normality, which is difficult to predict, will happen when Mexico is back to full volume “Because of a good American market, Peru and Colombia have not really entered the European market in a meaningful way this year.”
Asian volumes to Europe
Vietnam has been the main player in Asia for several years, but the country suffered an abnormal period of low quality in 2023 and now also has to deal with longer shipping times due to the situation in the Red Sea.
“The demand for limes is fairly constant, but when the sun shines, consumption can really increase. So what we often see is a fairly stable market in the winter months that can easily become unbalanced with just 10% oversupply. So far We have seen this a few times this year, when Brazil had a few peak weeks and some confusing information came from suppliers, often stating that there would be a shortage the following week, which then resulted in large exports. that this has to do with the fragmentation of the supplier base and also with regional differences that sometimes provide conflicting information,” Rob explains.
“Cultivating conditions have been difficult this year. There have been higher than normal temperatures and often periods of prolonged rain. It has led to a higher number of defects, in particular peel problems that sometimes only appear at the consumer’s home, often after temperature changes. This happened in the past is usually the year after an El Niño, so maybe that’s the correlation.”
Size sorting
Limes are small fruits. The dimensions are determined by the cycle of the trees. At the beginning of the cycle the fruit is small, at the end it is slightly larger. But with 12 months of availability from multiple regions, any sizing issues are usually resolved quite quickly.
“We expect demand to increase from spring onwards. The level will be determined by European consumers’ appetite for celebrations… Many say that inflation in Europe will slow down consumption, but we hope that any negative effect will be offset by the increased interest in healthy and culinary interesting products.”
“Ship delays combined with rejections in Europe, mainly for citrus canker, are adding to the volatility of this item. This Easter weekend is a good example, prices will jump to very high levels due to a late ship, but after this peak we will see that more volume is hitting the market that is all a week older. Right now we are working hard to supply our customers. If our customers don’t feel the extreme volatility of this item, then we have done our job!”
For more information:
Robert Cullum
Pacific Produce
Tel: +44 (0) 1865877801 (UK)
[email protected]
www.pacificproduce.co.uk
