Agronometrics in Charts: Blackberries reach highest prices in five years

In week 13, blackberries reached the highest average prices (USD/kg) of the last five years in the U.S. market.

As can be seen in the graph below, prices reached a historic $10.17/kg, which is 74 percent higher than those recorded in 2020 for the same date.

Looking at the graph below, these high prices are of blackberries from Central America, whose average prices in week 13 have been $11.03/kg for conventional blackberries, and those from Mexico, which reached a maximum of $9.31/kg for non-organic blackberries.

In relation to volumes, as we can see from the graph below, they were lower in 2021 from week 7 in comparison to 2020. In week 12, the volumes of blackberries registered in the U.S. market were over 1,500,000 kg, an 18 percent decrease than those recorded in 2020 for the same date range.

*Blackberry volumes for week 13 are not yet updated by USDA.

The volumes that decreased the most were from Mexico, because the blackberry production of Michoacán, the main producing state in the country, fell by 29 percent as shown in the following graph.

On the other hand, volumes from Guatemala were higher between weeks three and 12 of 2021, compared to 2020 for the same dates. This decrease in Mexican blackberry volumes may have pushed prices down.

Written by: Cristian Crespo F.
Original published in FreshFruitPortal.com on April 06, 2021 (Link)