Mexican mangos struggling in flooded U.S. market
North American mango importers continue to acquire large volume to place into an overflowing market — regardless of market prices. So said Daniel Ibarra, president of Splendid by Porvenir LLC, which is one of Mexico’s most influential mango grower-packer-exporters.
“Everybody is trying to import more than the market can handle,” he said.
Daniel Ibarra with his neighbor and another mango packer, Rodolfo Luque.
“In other years, growers sent more fruit to processors or Mexican juice companies,” he continued. “This year they are exporting fresh to the U.S. That is not helping the market. It’s the same fruit, going to different markets. In the future, we have to continue and hope the market gets better. The way to turn this around is for importers to aim for better quality for the U.S.”
He said that for now, Mexican mango growers can’t resist filling the demand created by importers. “When the importers buy and sell cheap fruit, the market doesn’t get better,” he added.
Splendid’s massive packinghouse in Los Mochis, Sinaloa, “is packing at full speed,” Ibarra said in early August. “We are keeping our quality up. We are packing very good fruit. We will ship fruit from Los Mochis until the end of September.
“The market has not been very good,” he said. “There has been a lot of volume in the last week and everyone is not very happy with what’s going on. I hope the market gets stronger. We’ve seen poor quality and that’s not helping.”
Instead of stopping, Los Mochis packers continue packing in the face of low prices, which Ibarra said is not good. “Everyone in this zone is packing a lot.”
The quality of Los Mochis mangos was lowered because of rains, which promoted anthracnose to scar the fruit. Anthracnose is caused by fungi that creates diseases on many plant species.
Los Mochis began shipping mangos in late June. There was a slow start on shipping volume, “but now the market can’t handle the volume,” he said.
Ibarra and his brother, Cheyene Ibarra, own Splendid. Their office and packinghouse is in Los Mochis, Sinaloa. Splendid’s business and sales office is in San Bruno, CA.
