Pineapple monthly review: January 2021

The overall supply remained fairly low for a good part of the month, since the packing stations in Costa Rica were working at a slower tempo in the second half of December. The promotions organised by the supermarket sector continued, enabling those volumes available to be readily absorbed. At the very end of the month, the Costa Rican supply regained more regular volumes. Operators had some fears over the fruit quality and storage life, because Costa Rica had seen heavy rains in the first half of the month. Spot market sales remained fairly moderate due to the lockdown measures, which continued to be stepped up right across Europe.

January brought a lacklustre situation for the air-freight market. At the beginning of the month, several operators, anticipating a fall in demand after the holidays, significantly scaled back their imports. So the overall supply was fairly small throughout the month, though without the market giving an impression of under-supply. Sales of Cayenne, the supply of which remained limited, were fairly fluid. Conversely, the situation for Sugarloaf sales was more complicated. The lack of coloration on supposedly coloured fruit apparently affected demand, and it was green fruit which sold best, especially from the hypermarkets. The Sweet supply remained fairly small, with stable demand. Unfortunately the Ghanaian supply did not really seem able to take advantage, and struggled to find a place on this market.

The overall Victoria supply was smaller throughout the month, especially because of the paucity of the Reunion supply (the result of the natural blooming in December). Interest in fruit from Mauritius was more marked, although rates remained stable over the entire month.

pineapple - france - import prices - jan 2021