"This season our first arrivals came in early December and we had our final arrivals last week," noted Larry Davidson of North American Produce Buyers. "We are out of South African grapes and any left in the Canadian market will only be inventory and perhaps consist of late black seedless varieties. Volume for late season green is minimal but with new plantings, that will change in the coming years."
Season was "interesting"
At the start of the offshore season, a lot of California fruit remained and importers were expecting a tough year. Exporters from the southern hemisphere regions anticipated this and began sending fruit to other markets such as Europe and Asia, as Davidson explained. "It was an interesting season. The industry thought it would have fruit from California until February and the industry feared it would have created an unfavorable market for grapes from other regions. As a result, countries like Peru shipped a lot of their earlier fruit to other markets."
However, he added that the situation many had predicted did not eventuate as retailers moved to offshore grapes earlier than expected. "Major retailers switched earlier than anticipated. This, coupled with the volume moved to other markets, created a shortage. It ended up being quite a strong market through the early part of the year."
Canada will continue to increase imports from South Africa
Canada imports significantly more South African grapes than the United States does. This is a function of many different factors. Despite the heavy and late California season, imports from South Africa to Canada rose, and look set to keep rising as the profile of South African grapes continues to increase.
"Our business from South Africa has grown this season, ending up to be our biggest year ever," Davidson said. "We haven't got any numbers yet, but indications are that overall imports into Canada increased. Customers are becoming more comfortable with the growing practices and shipping standards that they see from South Africa, so this is likely to continue growing. Typically, US consumers are very loyal to “Product of the USA”. That same loyally does not exist in Canada for obvious reasons. In addition, the Canadian marketplace tends to be hyper competitive when it comes to pricing and South African grapes tend to arrive to market with more aggressive prices."
South African partner helping to bring success
Davidson said that North American Produce works exclusively with The Grape Company in South Africa, and attributes the success of their offshore grape program from South Africa to this partnership. He noted that the company was happy with all shipments from The Grape Company and that they even worked together on improved branding some years ago.
"The Grape Company is made up of some incredible growers. In addition, they are great people to deal with," Davidson shared. "We have been very happy with every variety that they shipped to us last season. Recently, we began doing some very small trials of Cotton Candy which seemed to go very well."
"We have worked with The Grape Company to develop our own brand," he continued. "For the first couple of seasons, our South African grapes arrived in generic packaging. However, together we developed the 'Savannah' brand. They did a great job designing pouch bags with colorful, eye-catching graphics. We look forward to continue growing our South African program each year."
