Kiwi Market Digest w40

Weekly Updates on the B2B Kiwi Market

Kiwi Market Prospects Become Clearer

The trading activity of kiwifruit in Europe's major wholesale markets over the past week has provided participants with valuable insights into the kiwi market's prospects for this year and beyond. This has helped them navigate through the market and make informed decisions.

According to the most recent update from the Federal Ministry of Food and Agriculture for calendar week 38, there has been a consistent rise in the prices of higher-caliber products. This information is based on the main wholesale markets in Germany, and specifically on the price of Cal. 30/33 kiwifruits. The following graph illustrates the observed increase in prices.

There has been an increase of 5.61% in the mean prices of Greek and Italian kiwifruit of the aforementioned specifications week-to-week, with a mean absolute price of 3.45€/Kg.

As for lower calibers, Greek Cal. 25/27 kiwifruit mean prices remained stable at 3€/Kg in German wholesale markets, being a cost-effective solution to the increasing prices of its counterpart of Italian origin, which costs about 3.59 €/Kg. 

In France, and specifically in the Rungis market, our agents have reported lower prices for the Italian offering, at 3.3€/Kg.

Market Powers Behind Price Movements

Several professionals in the sector have reported witnessing Greek producers rushing to get their produce to the markets in order to exploit the current supply gap, regardless of the impact on the quality of the fruit being traded. This practice has been observed by many witnesses and is causing concerns within the industry.

It is expected that prices will rise due to the lower production volume prospects for this season. Thus, if producers waited so their product became of higher quality and more marketable, they could achieve even higher margins than they do now by pushing unripe and hard fruit in the markets, which damages the view people have of the Greek brand and its trustworthiness. 

Updated Prospects on Kiwi Production

Recently conducted research once again supports the expectations that kiwi consumption levels will continue to steadily increase in the future. The fruit is viewed to have broken into the lists of favorites of consumers in very enticing European markets, like those of Belgium, Germany, and the Netherlands.

Wikifarmer's View

From the previous analysis, we can without doubt state once again the very positive prospects of the kiwifruit market, both for producers and for B2B users of it, whether it is fresh produce wholesalers, or food production units that manufacture products containing kiwifruit, the new favourite of European consumers. 

In this context, both farmers and B2B buyers of kiwi need to make optimized market decisions. For the former, we saw, for example, how important it is for their profit margins and for the credibility of their offering to promote their product in the markets at just the right time, so they can balance off the contrasting incentives of offering quality products and making a quick profit. For the latter, it is also crucial to source quality raw material that suits their final products' desired quality profile while also ensuring they don't surpass their budget constraints.