South Africa: "Prices are around half of what we saw last year,"

The export of apples to West Africa is very challenging this season according to Pieter von Maltitz from FreshGold, a South African company who have been supplying the African markets for 16 years. The "Energy countries' are struggling to have enough currency due to the fall in oil prices.

"We predicted that this would happen but we did not expect it to be quite so bad," explains Pieter. "It is predominately for the Golden Delicious apples, the favourite variety in West African countries. As an industry we have developed this market for the last 15 years, it is the main market for that variety."

"We are still loading for West Africa but it is more difficult to get your money and prices are around half of what we saw last year," said Pieter. "The Middle East is taking Golden Delicious and Bangladesh has traditionally been a good market for the middle sizes and our domestic market is taking a bit more, so we do have alternatives it's just that the values are greatly reduced."

In the last few years there has been building competition in West Africa but people are staying away this year and only the ones who have been trading there for a while are going this year.

It a different story in East Africa which is a market which likes the Royal Galas, Top Red, Granny Smiths and Pink Ladys, it is going very well according to Pieter.

"Pears have done extremely well this season, so to look at the broad picture it is not all that bad," said Pieter. "Small sizes at the start of the season didn't have an impact as our markets prefer the smaller sizes and the later apples were normal size."

"Citrus in the north of the country is struggling this season after the hot summer and lack of rain, grapefruit is especially affected," explained Pieter. "Rain in the last weeks has not done much to improve the sizes. The Eastern Cape has a good crop and the Western Cape is OK, but the north is a bit of a disaster. The small sizes will add to the reduction in volumes. The estimate is 28% less grapefruit but after being here myself this week I think it could be even less."