Orange Market Digest w7

Weekly Orange Market Updates

Updates from Fruit Logistica 2024

Fruit Logistica 2024 marked the second edition of the primary fresh produce exhibition in Europe, where Wikifarmer participated as an exhibitor. Since last time, our team has grown significantly larger, as has our global commercial activity. This was apparent in the presence of multiple fresh produce experts and sales managers in Wikifarmer’s booth, keen to have exchanges with potential partners across Europe, North Africa, the Middle East, and the Americas.

The turnout at our stand was constant throughout the exhibition, getting our representatives in touch with stakeholders of B2B buyers of fresh produce, mainly wholesalers/importers. We also discussed extending our supplier network with the participation of multiple significant regional players in Spain, Italy, and the Netherlands, among others, to enhance the flexibility of our supply mechanism for our expanding worldwide network of customers.

Most visitors represented companies with activity mainly concentrated in Europe. Regarding the citrus sector, the main insight we extracted from speaking with players on the buyer side of the market had to do with the fierce competition their products are currently facing from third-country produce, mainly Egypt. Even though we have talked about the organized efforts of the Egyptian state to curb the shady practices in the fresh produce value chains and promote transparency and compatibility of activities with international standards, we often came across complaints about the continuation of such practices, such as exporting products without performing all necessary phytosanitary tests.

However, it is noteworthy that a measurable proportion of our visitors represented Chinese, American, and Middle Eastern operators. This is compatible with the heightened number of deals we struck with businesses from Saudi Arabia and the UAE in the last quarter and the sharpened number of communications we have with operators from the USA and China, mainly for the olive oil and citrus segments.

Main Price Movements in the EU

The gathering of our fresh produce experts in Western Europe allowed them to speak in person with operators of the region's wholesale markets. Of the greatest commercial interest were the German wholesale markets, together with the Rungis market in France.

The main observation regarded the dominance of Spanish produce in supply at this time of the year, at least in the blonde oranges segment. The Navel variety still concerns most transactions, but as previously discussed, third-country produce of questionable quality and mainly of Egyptian origin has flooded the markets. Such produce is being offered even at half the price of its European counterparts on some occasions. Even though this situation has sparked buyers' interest, supply smoothly met demand, so prices showed general stability, with slight reductions noted in some cases. Such incidents were noted in Italy, where demand has receded after multiple weeks of robustness.