Blueberries on the East Coast are continuing to see a tightening of supply out of the Coffs Coast region as we start to see the first harvests of rabbiteye fruit from the region. Quality has continued to be the call out from the retailers, with some large rejections hitting the central markets today in Sydney. We are optimistic that the price may push up next week on standards; however, retailers are very nervous about pushing too high, knowing that rabbiteye volumes will come in quickly. Eureka prices have pushed up again this week, and we are forecasting another jump next week. A significant amount of standard fruit is being produced in WA from non-MB growers, which is currently holding the price back from increasing. The focus for WA growers will be on moving premium fruit east in the coming two weeks, with exports slowing down and prices becoming uncompetitive with domestic premium prices. With the improved cool chain (from harvest to fumigation timeframes), we expect to see a massive difference in shelf life and quality.
Strawberries continue to have a stop-start approach to the summer. There is fruit coming from return plants (2nd year) across both the Stanthorpe and Victoria growing regions. We expect volume to pick up in 7-10 days, but it is not coming on fast once growers have moved through the first flush. Tasmania is still well back; larger volumes will come in early to mid-December. In WA, southern production is expected to ramp up in 3 weeks, with first-year plants starting to hit their window before Xmas.
Raspberries have seen a lot more volume in the last couple of weeks. All retailers have yet to adopt the 170g larger punnet strategy, and there is still confusion as to whether they will all range it before Xmas, which we are not 100% certain they will. We expect more production to continue and demand to increase as they become more affordable in the coming weeks. Price and volumes in WA continue to hold high with very little volume being produced locally.
Blackberries continue to power on from a very small base, and we expect that a large volume will come online in the coming on weeks and this will put pressure on the other berry categories.
As noted in the headline, this is when we start to see a softening in demand across supermarket retail in general, and demand usually picks up 10-14 days before Xmas and then falls away dramatically once more. Unfortunately, this lull in demand coincides with the increase in volume across several categories (including Berries), and we expect a more difficult trade this year with families under budget pressure and saving on non-essential items trading down and looking for value.
