As extremely high temperatures in Israel are leading to extra-large mango fruit, the ready-to-eat mango demand in Europe has increased. According to Yosi Knop, marketing and sales manager at Galilee Export in Israel: “It is not significant, but our volume is slightly less because of the extreme weather and larger sized fruit. We see a big trend in the European market with a lot more demand for premium ready-to-eat mangoes with a lot less demand for green mango. It became really significant this year, there is much more demand for the ripe fruit.”
Unlike Europe Israel is known for its searing desert like temperatures, but this year Yosi says they are really feeling the heat too. “It’s extremely hot weather over here. July was the hottest in the history with several days of over 40 degrees Celsius, especially in the mango production areas. We asked agronomists who indicated that the extremely hot weather are possible reasons for the larger sizes, but again overall the season looks fine. The crop and quality is good, while there is a slight decrease in total volume for export but it is nothing really significant. Also because the fruit sizes are larger, which is less accepted in the export market it is sold locally with only a bit less available for export.”
The higher ready-to-eat demand is also leading to better retail prices for all the effort to ripen the mangoes. “While pricing is a bit higher because it is another process involved to ripen, but not that significant. The consumer wants the mangoes now, fresh and ready, people don’t have time to wait,” states Knop.
Galilee Export targets Europe with mainly Western Europe as their traditional markets for mangoes. “They are expecting our mangoes this time of the year. It’s our season time now. We believe the total exports from Israel to EU market this time of the year covers around 20% of the market consumption. In a month or so it will be over and another supplying country takes over.”
He notes the weather challenges in Spain, Italy and Greece, which led to some challenges for these major supplying countries has not really lead to a bigger mango demand from Israel. “While we have seen slightly higher demand due to Spain, Italy and Greece who are struggling a bit, the market demand is fair and solid. There is no explosion in demand, no chaos. They had their issue with the weather in Spain and the serious drought leading to water supply problems, which caused them some struggles to supply, but again it’s nothing significant. Everything is solid. For Israel’s mangoes it’s a fair season, a bit similar to last season,” concludes Knop.
