Lime Update
Volumes have been extremely heavy when you look at the 21-day lookback in the Mexican Lime Crossings chart below. Volumes were massive 2 and 3 weeks ago. The last 7 days were still heavy with 645 loads, but down 20% from the previous 7 days. Market has fallen drastically. Inventories are high, especially on larger limes. Quality is generally very good on new fruit. Watch out for a lot of old inventory that needs to be purged from shippers that were trying to hold on to higher pricing. We are still being told there will a real tightening of supply and higher prices for mid-to-late February. Until then, please run promotional and spot opportunities by us. There are 1,656 stores on ad on limes this week at an average retail price of $0.44 per unit. This is down from 1,967 stores last week. There are only 19 stores on organic ads at an average retail of $0.33.
Mango Crop Update
We are in week 5 now. The mango market is moving very well with demand still outpacing supply in general. Vessel delays on both coasts are complicating operations. At the moment we are basically waiting on containers to be able to fill orders. Prices quoted are for booking off the containers coming in this Friday. The APEM report has revised reported volumes upward verses the original report the last two weeks. I would not be surprised to find out tomorrow that the 282 containers last reported get revised to over 300. Regardless, this week and the next 2 weeks are the peak of the Peru Kent volume. Quality and flavor are fantastic. Sizing is very well balanced from 7s through 10s and even 12s have increased from almost nothing to 9% of incoming manifests now that Motupe and Olmos have started. See the Peru Round Mango Sizing chart below. The polar vortex hitting the Midwest and Northeast probably boosted shopping greatly over the weekend and the store sales will likely suffer heavily when all this snow dumps on the region the next few days.
I have revised the Mexico forecast because the actual volume for the first few weeks have been well below the volume of last year which I was using as a forecast. I have now taken a 5 year average and plugged that in as the total volume and used an approximation of last years percent Ataulfo to arrive at the new forecast. See Arrival Volume Chart below for a forecast by week of all COOs. It looks like we will have good stable volume weeks 5, 6 and 7 then a tightening in the round market that will last until late March. Ataulfo (Honey mango) will be building volume every week. We would encourage any mango promotions for late February and early March to be in the Ataulfo (Honey) variety. Given our forecast, we would discourage large promotion on round mangos for loading starting week 8 through week 12. Volumes should be getting healthy again on round mangos around week 13 and 14 when all central American countries are coming in and Mexico kicks off with round volume from Oaxaca and Michoacán. Oaxaca will supply the large fruit and Michoacán looks to be small sizing this year as usual. We expect the quality to be very challenging on the first flowering of Ataulfos from Mexico due to rains during flowering. The second flowering will start being picked mid- February and we expect better quality.
Stores on ad on conventional mangos decreased from 6,579 stores to 6,354 stores on ad for the week ending today. Weighted average retail price is $1.06 per piece. Mangos remained in the top 10 most promoted fruits this week. See the USDA Data on Retail Mango Ads chart below for detailed data by geographic region of the country. Stores on ad on organic mangoes increased from 274 stores to 505 stores at an average price of $1.46 per piece.
