Agronometrics in Charts: Kiwifruit prices high and stable at beginning of 2021-22 season

For this week’s Agronometrics in Charts we will be looking at kiwifruit prices and volumes for the season starting in the U.S. market.

The 2021-22 season in the Northern Hemisphere has begun with stable prices, the highest seen for the same date over the last five years.

Just as the 2020-21 season ended with kiwifruit from Chile and New Zealand, this time the fruit is of California origin, waiting for the first shipments of Italian kiwifruit to arrive.

We can see in the graph below that the average prices for conventional kiwifruit in the U.S. market were US$2.97 per kilogram, a 22 percent increase year-on-year.

Prices being recorded are coming only from California and are the Hayward variety. Although the volume data recorded by the USDA speaks of volumes arriving from Greece, Italy and New Zealand.

Source: USDA Market News via Agronometrics.
(Agronometrics users can view this chart with live updates here)

One of the reasons that the North American market has seen stable prices so far this season may be due to the fact that lower volumes of kiwifruit have arrived in recent weeks year-on-year as can be seen in the graph below.

The decrease in these volumes has been registered mainly for fruit from Italy and central California.

Volumes (in Kg) of kiwifruit in the US Market

Source: USDA Market News via Agronometrics.
(Agronometrics users can view this chart with live updates here)

We will be watching very closely to see what happens to prices in the Northern Hemisphere season that has just begun, especially when higher volumes begin to arrive from Greece and Italy and as the U.S. season, specifically California continues to advance.

Written by: Cristian Crespo F.
Original published in FreshFruitPortal.com on November 16, 2021 (Link)