Pineapple monthly review: November 2023

In November, the pineapple market supply was heavily disrupted by Storms Ciaran and Domingos, which struck Europe one after the other, contributing to altering the market picture. Hence over the first three weeks of the month, the market saw a temporary under-supply phase, because of not only shipping delays, but also unloading delays. Despite the fairly flat demand, sales were fairly fluid, with rather stable rates. Over the latter fortnight, the market got a lot tougher. Practically all the batches received were of fairly fragile quality, seemingly a consequence of the heavy rains in September in Costa Rica. The fragility of the fruit considerably limited its shelf life, and in a context of flat demand, operators often had to make clearance sales to avoid having to destroy batches.

The air-freight pineapple market was fairly quiet throughout the month. During the first fortnight, demand remained affected by the All Saints’ public holidays. The operators had to scale back their imports to keep them in line with the rather flat demand. Unfortunately the end of the holidays did not help improve the market conditions, which remained fairly gloomy. The Cayenne supply sold more or less well according to the brands. There was a noteworthy market comeback by a few well-worked batches from Côte d’Ivoire. The Sugarloaf market was a bit less fluid, since the rains in Benin and Cameroon greatly limited the coloration of certain batches, which made trading more complicated. The Sweet market remained fairly fluid, though sales involved only fairly limited volumes.

The overall Victoria supply was on the rise throughout the month. The Reunion supply, very heavily unbalanced since it mostly comprised large fruit (40 % sizes 6 and 7 by volume), had more trouble selling, forcing operators to occasionally lower their prices to sell off some sizes.

pineapple - france - import prices november 2023