Australian citrus exports to the United States will arrive in an empty market hungry for new stock, according to a major USA distributor.
The American citrus season ended earlier this year because of a drought in California and the on-going effects of the citrus greening disease in Florida.
And while Australian fruit enjoys an advantage for arriving on the market earlier than its competitors, this year there will be more competition from Uruguay, Chile and South Africa.
The Oppenheimer Group's citrus category director, James Milne, says this year demand is higher.
"In a normal year we would probably start to see the last of the navel crops start to clean up now, but many of the packing sheds actually finished a good three to four weeks ago."
Milne says despite the higher competition from other countries this season, Australian citrus should perform well this year.
"There's a lot of clamouring for the easy-peelers, there's obviously demand for the navels as well. So in a general sense it's very positive, but the question will be for how long that continues, because obviously between Chile, South Africa, Australia and Uruguay, these are four countries that are very up to date with what's happening in this market, so loadings are going on a furious clip and South Africa has about 8000 pallets discharging in the region.
"So Australian fruit is going into a market that's looking for fruit, but these factors will temper things a little bit."
