In this installment of the ‘In Charts' series, Cristian Crespo F. of Agronometrics illustrates how the U.S. market is evolving. Each week the series looks at a different horticultural commodity, focusing on a specific origin or topic visualizing the market factors that are driving change.

Chilean kiwifruit was having a golden moment a few years ago, until the arrival in the country of what is known as the kiwazo - an explosive rise in the number of orchards. This led to a sharp rise in export volumes, which in turn impacted prices, making the business less profitable.

This year, however, Chilean kiwifruit fetched the highest prices in five years in the U.S. market. This is largely due to a 15% drop in export volumes (and a 17% drop in shipments to the U.S.). The lower supplies largely came about due to weather-related issues in the central O'Higgins region.

Average prices of Chilean kiwifruit arrivals in the U.S.

(Source: USDA Market News via Agronometrics. Agronometrics users can view this chart with live updates here)

The chart below clearly shows how volumes of Chilean kiwifruit have differed this year compared to last year.

Volume of Chilean kiwifruit in the U.S. market

(Source: USDA Market News via Agronometrics. Agronometrics users can view this chart with live updates here)

In our ‘In Charts’ series, we work to tell some of the stories that are moving the industry. Feel free to take a look at the other articles by clicking here.

You can keep track of the markets daily through Agronometrics, a data visualization tool built to help the industry make sense of the huge amounts of data that professionals need to access to make informed decisions. If you found the information and the charts from this article useful, feel free to visit us at www.agronometrics.com where you can easily access these same graphs, or explore the other 20 fruits we currently track.