A severe shortfall in the Turkish grapefruit crop means canned prices could rise by 50% compared with last year when fruit was plentiful.
Both Israel and Turkey are switching to juice concentrate production as world demand exceeds supply, resulting in extremely good financial returns for processors.
Similarly, demand for fresh grapefruit is up year-on-year, so canners are struggling to obtain fruit of acceptable quality.
Israel will have a crop similar in size to last season’s, but the shortage in Turkey is forcing prices higher and canners are warning of restricted availability. Hardest hit is the Ruby variety in Turkey, where the crop is estimated to be 70% down.
Meanwhile, China appears to be experiencing availability problems, according to sources in the German mandarin market. Canners are warning of cutbacks, which will once again raise doubts over the reliability offered by the Chinese. In
previous seasons there have been reports of unfulfilled mandarin contacts, always denied by the industry. But UK importers are not surprised at the news. “There are so many unknown factors in the Chinese market that UK buyers feel more comfortable dealing with Spain, even though prices are slightly higher,” said one.