Pineapple monthly review: December 2023

In December, the sea-freight pineapple market exhibited a lacklustre trajectory. In the first half-month, the supply continued to suffer disruption from shipping delays and logistical concerns. Outside of programmed sales, spot demand was fairly flat, especially for the small and medium-sized fruit supply (9 and 8). The quality of the incoming fruit was fairly mixed, which considerably limited its storage life. In the week before Christmas, the supply was again disrupted by shipping delays. Spot demand by then was higher, enabling operators with fruit available to sell it fairly readily, and at high rates. The very end of the year was marked by a shortened business week, because of public holidays on the Monday and Tuesday in several countries. Nonetheless rates remained stable, with the available supply being relatively limited and the operators anticipating livelier demand for the last weekend of the year.

The air-freight pineapple market had a fairly quiet start to the month. At the end of the first half-month, demand started to get its act together. Fruit quality remained fairly mixed, and several operators decided to defer the bulk of their imports. In the week preceding Christmas, the supply was heavily disrupted by logistical concerns (lack of freight availability). Several batches were either unloaded before departure, or were simply not loaded. While rates did not shoot up, sales were made at some very strong levels. The highly sought-after coloured Sugarloaf supply was the scarcest. During the last week, the quality of incoming batches was fairly heterogeneous, since some of the incoming batches had been harvested for shipments the previous week. However, this did not have too much effect on rates, which remained fairly stable since the overall supply was less than demand.

Throughout the month, Victoria demand rose constantly, once again confirming this fruit’s festive nature. Unfortunately, the overall supply was distinctly less than demand and often unbalanced, with occasionally some fairly unusual sizes appearing on the market (5 and 6). The lack of freight availability out of Reunion during Christmas week resulted in a distinct surge in rates for the few available batches. With a better supply after Christmas, the market nonetheless maintained a positive trend, with sales just as fluid.

pineapple - france - import prices - december 2023