A season where size counts, especially on your avos...
With the season not even close to done, most growers haven't seen their first sales reports on Hass (or Hass-types if you are lucky enough to have Maluma) yet, and the talk is already that small counts will in most cases be a dead loss. If your marketing agent hasn't told you yet, sorry. Brace for impact.
So far this season has been more or less as unpredictable as every season after 2020. Most surprisingly, as all our South Africans try and hit the market early to try and stay clear of the Peruvian storm hitting our market.
Thanks to Avor and "intelligence" the message hit early that the small fruit market would crash as early as week 14 (read more on my linkedin post at the time) . Peru due to climatic stress is mostly sending fruit count 20 and smaller. This soon put count 22 and smaller below 1 Euro per kilogram, a much-feared market position.
We had to readjust a bit. Our harvesting plan and strategy from week 10 onwards was now focussed on Maluma. Where our initial plan was to start Hass harvesting in week 13, this was now delayed to week 16 and later moved even further back to week 19. We soon realised that even Maluma was slightly smaller than previous seasons yet still giving us the best option to send big fruit - we further refined the strategy towards selective harvesting (oh how much I despise that word)
So where am I going with this and what is the relevance of all of it?
As we won't know how successful our strategy was until the season is over and we all get to apply our perfect vision hindsight, this is not a reflection on the perfect solution but rather a realtime check-in of what Allesbeste is doing and what we see. Oh and don't forget about the most unpredictable of all, logistics. "The Cape of No Hope" (historically know as the Cape of Good Hope) and its windbound port slowed 9 of our containers that were so meticulously planned. So lets just first wrap all this up before we brag about how successful we were.
So below are a few graphs of count sizing for the season and what we have managed to do. Lets face it, the more unpredictable the market gets the more important risk mitigation becomes. This is how it is playing our for us with an estimated 50-60% of our crop harvested.
The first graph represents our Hass count spread without selective harvesting
The next graph shows the Hass count spread where selective harvesting was done.
Note how in the second graph we managed to secure a higher % of count 12 to 20. Unfortunately we still have more 22 and 24's rolling over the line, yet it must also be noted how much lower the NCT (no count) fruit is which in the first instance represents a high % of small fruit amongst this waste category.
The success of this strategy lies in the hope of 2 factors. One, The market for small fruit (22-S1) gradually improves, even if only slightly, to a point where we reintroduce these fruits into the market and achieve better returns. Secondly as depicted in the picture of the cut fruit these fruits are all size 24 and smaller and what is remarkable is that a high % of these fruits still have active seed coats which now makes us even more optimistic that this fruit might even size up a little, especially given that we now removed a % of the crop from the trees. Again only time will tell, however, it's about following the best strategy available to you. I therefore do encourage you to take the time to evaluate your crop and delve into your dead seed percentages and your likelihood of achieving better markets by hanging fruit, irrespective of selective harvesting.
Now let's talk game changer - #Maluma_avo
Do I have to explain? Need I say more? Maybe it's time an Ernst stops there and tries not to prove a point. Just take into account the fact that up to week 19 the market has been trading count 14 - 18 at €13, count 20 at €9-10 and count 22-26 at €6-7. Where do you want to be right now? (and if this is where your mind is going: "but Maluma quality" I'm honestly just at a loss of words and ask you to please make contact with our in house Maluma counsellor Donovan Lewis).
if this is where your mind is going: "but Maluma quality" I'm honestly just at a loss of words and ask you to please make contact with our in house Maluma counsellor Donovan Lewis
The following graph is Allesbeste's year to date count spread on Hass-types. Obviously selective harvesting had it's effect and this is not all Maluma, but lets face it in a year where we need size we have options.
Am I still severely stressed about how this season plays out and how right we get this? YES, absolutely yes. But the fact is that this is not us trying to play the market, its rather us playing to our strengths as much as we can, using as much market insights as we can. Evaluating our fruit and just mitigating risk with as balanced strategy as possible. Looking forward to reporting on this and more at the Allesbeste Symposium. Register to attend the Simposium
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