Mid-season update on the 2025 season
Please enjoy the video below that was filmed during our visit to the East Coast in October 2024 at William Kopke’s facility in New Jersey, where you can see William himself walk us through the varieties and especially the quality of Summer Citrus from South Africa!
We have now entered into our mid-season period, and things are going very well! Although we were off to a really late start, we gained some great momentum over the last few weeks, and in terms of volume we are slightly ahead of what we originally planned for the season. Of course, this is quite typical for the perishable nature of our business, and we allow some room in our planning for the additional demand of the market. This aligns with our goal to grow the business responsibly and sustainably in the US.
We entered the US market towards the end of May with a few containers on the MSC Lorena. As previously mentioned, our season was off to a late start and we were really only able to start adhering to the weekly demand of the market around the 3rd week of June. Since then, we’ve coordinated weekly arrivals of either our dedicated conventional vessels or container vessels, which are operated mainly by MSC and some Maersk, and some weeks even both. The majority of our fruit is being shipped to the port of Philadelphia.
We have loaded a good solid amount of Easy Peelers, with most of them being Clementines, and Navels. Additionally, our fruit basket consists of Star Ruby Grapefruit, Cara-Cara, and a few Lemons as well.
For the month of July, we will continue to load some Easy Peelers, as the later Mandarin varieties could start, but this really depends on the maturity of the fruit. We will as well continue to load Navels, Star Ruby and Cara-Cara. Over all from a production side the crop and quality of the fruit is really looking good
As always, we pride ourselves on the quality of our fruit, our integrated approach throughout the total supply-chain and our real time information to the trade. All our service providers are connected in some way, and everyone knows what is expected of them. Our model of collaboration is unique and as we have gained a huge amount of momentum, we intend to keep it going!
A lot has been said about the tariffs into the US, but in the end, it is between our two governments to finalize the details. And of course, the economics need to make sense on both ends as well.
From our side, we are invested in the US market and together with our loyal partners and service providers, we are committed to executing this program with excellence and continued success for all parties involved. We have worked very hard to establish ourselves as the preferred supplier of citrus to the US during the summer months to compliment local citrus production when otherwise unavailable. We have also prioritized weekly arrivals of fresh fruit into the US market which did not happen over night or with the snap of finger! We are focused on a successful and sustainable business for the longer-term for all who are working to make this happen.
Please stay up-to-date during the season and reach to out to our grower-exporters or importers to secure your citrus during the summer months.
Proudly shipping and selling the world’s finest Summer Citrus!
Thank you for the continued support!
Suhanra Conradie
CEO – Summer Citrus from South Africa
suhanra@summercitrus.com
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