Guest article by Diego Castagnasso, a fresh produce and blueberry industry expert. Loud, opinionated, INFORMED! Diego writes DC’s B-Side’s newsletter as he speaks and speaks as he writes. You can subscribe, under your own peril, to his newsletter here or visit his less fun (for now) website Drip Consulting.

Read from a fresh fruit importer, about how to manage the next season while dealing with Trump’s tariffs…

Well, if you are a Peruvian exporter, producer, forwarder etc. etc., that might prove to be UNWISE, to say the least…

Why?

I think you can answer that one yourself just by reading the previous deliveries of DC’s B-Side, or you can ask Colin or me directly in the Q&A section of the webinar, your choice!

For now, let’s take a look at the history of the Proarandanos forecast for the US vs the real exports…

Because we don’t know what is going to happen but we can see what happened.

Source: USDA Market News via Agronometrics.

(Agronometrics users can view this chart with live updates here)

Season 2022/23: Nobody was waiting for the peak to be arriving so fast and so furious (10.703.610kg)… like all the markets prices went down and stay down for quite a while, with the lowest price $3,94 on week 41 (9.348.090kg arrived that week) and on week 47 $4,88 (2.341.800kg arrived).

As we saw last week, it took Europe 10 weeks (40 to 50) to go from $4,04 to $4,92 and from 5.914.220kg to 1.133.080kg.

Season 2023/24: “El Niño” was bad for many markets, but Peru behaved as a “good boy” (pond intended) with the US market, and although it was down in kilos, they made the effort to “give it all they could”. The US paid them handsomely for that effort, giving $11,06 FOB x kg in week 39 while the European market paid $9,20 FOB x Kg in week 25

Season 2024/25: Find Peru a bit behind but more communicative, keeping all their markets informed of the cold weather affecting the volume. What they weren’t expecting was a rise in volume from a forecasted peak of 8.244.116kg on week 41 (real 10.829.900kg) to the real peak in week 42 of 13.356.850kg, a meagre 62% higher.

And what was the US market response to that RECORD volume?

The lowest price paid was $4,93 in week 46. That, my friends, is almost ONE DOLLAR more per kilo compared to the lowest price registered in 2022.

HOW CAN THIS BE POSSIBLE?

Many reasons can explain this behavior, and you feel free to ask during the webinar.

But those numbers are the reason that explains this forecast 2025-26…

Source: USDA Market News via Agronometrics.

(Agronometrics users can view this chart with live updates here)

The US market would account for 53% of the Peruvian exports.

Shipments are expected to reach 212,102 tons.

The peak export is expected to occur in week 42, with 11,950 tons.

And here is where things get weird and why I was going to wait until next week to get into the 2025-26 forecast itself.

But since Trump and the Courts are still “playing” hide and seek with the tariffs, I decided to talk about it today.

So, let’s say there are NO tariffs…

Well, it is clear that thinking about sending the US market 53% of the total exports or even more makes sense.

It is evident that you can send huge amounts of blueberries, and they will eat them quicker than any other market and still pay “good” prices.

You cannot see it here, but the US market is more flexible than the European market regarding quality.

When fruit is scarce, they pay literally TOP DOLLARS.

Do I think that those numbers in the forecast are “right”?

I think not, but they are closer to what the “reality” might look like without tariffs.

But unfortunately… I think that Trump will find a way to keep the tariffs up one way or another, and that changes the game and the forecast a lot.

Do I have the RIGHT EXPORT FORECAST FOR PERU’S BLUEBERRIES

NO, No, no…

I have….

WE HAVE… along with Colin Fain, the…

DC's B-Side & Agronometrics Forecast 2025

… a webinar (June 12th) where we will present to only 30 people:

• Agronometrics Peru Production Forecast 2025
• Curated Version of Proarandanos Forecast 2025/26

Where you’ll get:

• Selected key information.
• The most important insights, trends, and data points.
• Organize in a structured and easy-to-digest format.
• Added context and analysis. (We interpreted the data, highlighted the crucial implications, and compared them to other sources)
• Our particular perspectives

So, if you want to be a part of it, start bidding NOW, because the auction ends Friday, June 6th, 23:45hs, Montevideo.

Have a GREAT Week!!!

And remember, if you liked what you read, send it to a friend; if not, unsubscribe…

PS: If you decide to wait and see… well, you might want to spend that time getting more information to be prepared…. so you can take advantage of the Webinar too.

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.

All pricing for domestic US produce represents the spot market at Shipping Point (i.e. packing house/climate controlled warehouse, etc.). For imported fruit, the pricing data represents the spot market at Port of Entry. 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 21 commodities we currently track.