Shipments of blueberries fresh will reach nearly 300 thousand tons for $1.5 billion in the 2022/2023 marketing year, an increase of 36.3 percent in volume and 17 percent in value.
So far in this campaign (May-October), shipments of blueberries fresh have reached 153,228,933 kilograms for $843,725,006, an increase of 31 percent in volume over what was shipped during the same period in the previous 2021 campaign.
In the May 2022/April 2023 campaign, Peruvian exports of blueberries fresh will approach 300 thousand tons worth close to $1.5 billion, which will represent a 36.3% increase in volume and 17% increase in value, compared to 220 thousand tons shipped for $1,278,267,877 in the previous campaign (2021/2022).
This was predicted by the president of the consulting firm Inform@cción, Fernando Cillóniz Benavides, who expressed his satisfaction with the "impressive" volume of fresh blueberries that Peru will export in this campaign.
He indicated that so far in this campaign (May-October) shipments of blueberries fresh have reached 153,228,933 kilograms for $843,725,006, showing a 31% increase in volume compared to what was shipped in the same period of the previous campaign. 2021/2022 campaign.
He pointed out that the peak of the campaign recorded in September and October, where 70,658,254 kilograms and 70,471,651 kilograms were exported respectively, has already been surpassed, when in the previous campaign shipments amounted to 58,108,202 kilograms in September and 57,608,186 kilograms in October.
"It is extraordinary. Never before have we reached 60 million kilograms of fresh blueberries exported, and in this campaign there are already two months in which more than 70 million kilograms have been shipped," he stressed.
Regarding the target markets for Peru's fresh blueberries in this campaign (May-October), he explained that they were
- North America with 80,398,181 pounds for $436,291,938
- Europe with 46,183,439 pounds for $236,909,324
- Asia with 26,010,288 kilograms for $166,906,584
- Latin America with 533,924 kilos for $3,617,159
In another point, Fernando Cillóniz said that the price of blueberries (as well as other fruit trees) has decreased year after year due to the significant increase in Peruvian (and other origins) supply. Added to this is the increase in production costs (fuel, fertilizer, labor, energy, transportation, among others).
He explained the average price of a kilogram of blueberries in the different campaigns from 2018/2019: August US$7.84, September US$8.62, October US$8.13, November US$7.90. In the 2019/2020 campaign: August US$7.44, September US$7.93, October US$6.86. In the 2020/2021 campaign: August US$6.70, September US$7.01, October US$6.37. In the 2021/2022 campaign: August US$6.70, September US$6.24, October US$5.50. While in the 2022/2023 campaign: August US$5.62, September US$5.47, October US$4.90.
BEWARE OF OVERPRODUCTION
The president of the consulting firm Inform@cción said that if you compare one month with the same month in the previous campaign, you see a decrease in the price. He added that in October this year the price was less than $5 per kilogram, which had never happened before.
"I would suggest that we slow down a bit on increasing new areas for this and other fruit trees and measure better, looking for other crops. We need to diversify with traditional crops whose prices have increased such as potatoes, cotton, corn, sugar, coffee," he concluded.
Cillóniz said that although shipments of blueberries will approach $1.5 billion by the end of this marketing year, they will not exceed table grape shipments, which will reach $1.8 billion by the end of the 2022/2023 marketing year. With this, blueberry would maintain its privileged position as the country's main agricultural export crop.
Source: Blueberries Consulting
Blueberries Consulting is part of the global network of Italian Berry
Photo: Melissa Belanger on Unsplash
