As noted over the last couple of weeks, fruit is abundant across many categories, including berries, providing a lot of options for shoppers/consumers. As expected, last week’s demand was soft across all retailers and categories, and we expect it to continue for most of this week. At the back end of this week, we expect demand and retail orders to increase, and there has been an oversupply of most categories on the market floor. 

Blueberries – There has been significant production over the last seven days with good harvesting conditions from the Coffs Coast region, and we expect this to continue in the coming week. We are optimistic that we should see this price hold until after Christmas at a minimum. We are uncertain at this stage what this will mean for price, but we will have a better insight with our next update. WA volumes continue to be strong for standard production growers in the state. 

Strawberries – Production across the board is expected to ramp up in the coming week across Blueberries and Strawberries, with more volume coming on in Victoria, South Australia and Tasmania. We hope that this price point will also anchor until after Christmas. Like Blueberries, we will review what it will mean for the wholesale price; we will have better insight with our next update. In WA, there is significant production from SA coming across to the central markets, and there is also more production from the southwest. For major retail, we expect prices to hold up until Christmas, with demand increasing towards the weekend. 

RUBUS – South East QLD and Northern NSW production is close to finishing for most in the region; we are unsure at this stage whether the production from Victoria and Tasmania will offset this volume drop before Christmas. If we see a volume drop, then there is a reasonable chance that prices on Raspberries will firm up next week before dropping again after Christmas.