Lime Market in Europe Expectations

According to a French Lime Importer, the Lime market has been excellent and stable in the past couple of weeks. The prices seen on the spot market are higher than those already closed and agreed with retailers in France and Germany, pushing retailers to order more than initially agreed. It has created a higher demand and stock movement on the market. They expect that continuing to week 16; there will be a shortage of Lime volumes arriving in Europe.

However, our source confirmed that many containers are currently on the water, heading towards Europe. According to the importer, this forthcoming volume is expected to be larger than last year. That should negatively impact the market, but given the continuous delays, nobody knows with certainty when all these containers can be expected to arrive in Europe.
A German wholesaler confirmed the above statements, as nevertheless, for them, demand from retail will remain strong, at least in Germany. This can be said especially for untreated and organic fairtrade limes. According to this wholesaler, those are the only limes that can be sold at reasonable prices under negative market circumstances. Moreover, they mentioned that untreated limes are now a standard for German retailers, a matter that should be considered by exporters and growers of Tahiti limes(mainly from Brazil and Colombia).