Chilean grape imports by U.S. importers should be much better than last season.
During the 2015-16 season, Chile exported a total of almost 85.5 million 18-pound equivalent boxes of table grapes. While there are no official estimates for 2016-17, table grape production is expected to be around 90 million boxes. The main variety out of Chile is globe, with global exports of more than 28 million boxes, followed by crimson with 18 million, thompson seedless with 16 million and flame seedless with 8.5 million boxes.
The Chilean grape season started a little earlier than normal, and by the week of Dec. 19th, Chile had shipped nearly 47,000 tons of grapes to the U.S. This compares with just 12,600 tons last season.
As of January 10th, the South American country had shipped 91 percent more than the same time last year; — 78,629 tons compared to 41,035 tons. Flame seedless, sugraone and thompson seedless were the main varieties that had shipped.
Total volume will be similar to last year and if not higher, although a significant difference will be in timing of U.S. imports, with the season starting and ending sooner than last season. In essence, Chilean grape availability will be condensed to about an eight to 10-week timeframe compared to the normal 10-12 week interval.
Heavy volume of imports are expected in the next two months from Chile’s southern region.
There were heavy rains in Chile last December the northern growing regions where early season grapes were the most affected, with some damage to flames and sugraones.
Still there is a 250 percent increase year-to-date in volume over last year, with a lot of loading opportunities coming at U.S. ports in February and March.
By contrast, Peruvian grape imports have fallen short of pre-season expectations while Chile is harvesting at a record rate, especially with red grapes.
One importer indicated that so far this year, there have been 16.3 million cases combined between Peru and Chile season-to-date compared to 12.7 million last year.