The last 24 hours have been very wet for the Northern Rivers, and it looks like it will continue for the next few days. The Coffs Coast has not seen as much rain, but it has still been significant with the last 24 hours in some areas, and it’s unlikely that we will see much of a harvest from outside growers until Thursday at the earliest.
What does this mean across the market, and will NSW change to 170g for some retailers?
In short, there will be some significant supply issues for Blueberries from Wednesday to Friday; this will be exacerbated by the transition to 170g for Coles and Aldi in NSW. Whilst Woolworths will stay in 125g this week, they have unfortunately chosen this week to kick off their Winter Berries program, which is likely to include a catalogue. When a retailer chooses to put something in the catalogue, they need to do these ten days in advance, so whilst they may have picked the wrong week to commence their season start (due to the rain), they had the right intention to support the category. Still, due to the rain, it means it has done quite the opposite. So the next question is, why must we move to 170g this week? The truth is that retailers were told as late as last Thursday by their growing group that they had enough volume to support the transition. Once you kick off the transition process, it’s hard to repeal, and they have had to continue despite it not being the right week. Post this weather, we expect harvest conditions to improve significantly, with the rest of the month (at this stage) looking like there should be minimal impact from the rain.
Far North QLD – The weather in Far North QLD looks suitable for harvesting berries, with overnight temperatures only going as low as 14 and daytime temps pushing up to 28 degrees (which is slightly above historical averages) but should not pose any quality issues. This is set to continue for the rest of the month.
WA—Premium fruit continues to perform well and has enough demand to hold prices. We don’t expect any change in this until we see the next jump in volume out of the northern growing region. The retailers and central markets have been very happy with the quality to date.
Strawberries— The market continues to fall well behind last year by -19.1% in volume vs the same week the previous year. We are seeing volume pick up this week, and the retailers come back for the first time; we are expected to see some $3 retail in the coming week In QLD; however, It’s likely to hold another week in NSW and VIC (unless there is an unforeseen catalogue planned). At $3, I expect this to be a trigger price point for consumers and good demand at this price. Fruit quality continues to be good; however, this will be tested with the current rain event. Price on the West Coast has come back to $3.90 in WW and Aldi and $4.20 in Coles in the last week; we expect this volume to pick up in the coming weeks with the consistent warmer-than-average max temps they are having.
Raspberries—Raspberry Volumes have decreased -2.2% vs the prior week -42% vs the same week last year. We believe we are at the bottom of the season and are not expecting significant volumes in the short term.
Blackberries—Production has dropped again by -20.7 % vs the week prior; however, we are now similar to what we were at the bottom of last year’s season. Similar to Raspberries, we don’t expect a significant increase in the short term.
