A modest increase of just over 7% is estimated for Israel’s 2022 table grape harvest that has just started. Only about 5% of the annual crop is exported with 95% going towards local consumption.
According to Eyal Raban, from Israel’s Ministry of Agriculture, the total harvest last year was 65.000 tons and is estimated to be around 70.000 tons for the current 2022 season. “The harvest started with Early Sweet and early varieties in greenhouses and finishes in November. About 95% of the fruit is marketed to the local market while 5% of the fruit is exported to countries in Europe and especially to England in the United Kingdom.”
Given the desert conditions in Israel the area of the table grapes under production is somewhat limited to about 3,000 hectares. “Every year there are new plantations of about 250 hectares. In recent years there has been a slow rise in the field of table grapes,” explains Raban.
The top five varieties in terms of volumes grown in Israel are Early Sweet (early white), Big Pearl (early white), Rocky (mid white), Crimson (late red) and Scarlotta (late red).
Unfortunately Israel will not export many grapes this season with nearly all going to the local market according to Eitan Zvi, Marketing VP from the second largest Israel based exporter Galilee Exports. He puts this down to Egypt and India who are in the same marketing window and Israel being unable to compete with their prices. Both countries also have substantially more volumes available to export to world markets.
“Israel will not export this year, all will go to the domestic market, last year nothing went to exports. In the previous year’s summer of 2020 and 2019 only a few hundred tons were exported. It seems even these tons will go to the domestic market in the next few years. In Israel we can’t compete with the prices of Egypt and India,” explains Zvi.
