Argentina fresh produce export calendar

Roughly April to September out of Tucumán. Argentina is the largest lemon exporter in the world and this window is the reason: it opens as Spain and Turkey finish, and it holds the Northern Hemisphere market until they come back.

Because lemons store and travel well, this is a supply-gap trade rather than a freshness one. The price is set by how much fruit is in Northern Hemisphere stores when the Argentine season opens, not by anything happening in Tucumán.

Roughly January to July out of the Río Negro and Neuquén valleys, shipping through San Antonio Este — a dedicated fruit port built for this trade.

Argentina is the Southern Hemisphere’s volume pear origin, ahead of both Chile and South Africa. The window opens earlier than either, which means Argentine fruit sets the opening price for the Southern Hemisphere pear season.

Roughly February to July, from the same Patagonian valleys as the pears and usually in the same programme.

Argentine apples ship from storage on the seller’s timing, so what looks like a five-month window is really a five-month decision. Ask when the exporter intends to ship rather than when the fruit was picked.

Roughly September to November out of Entre Ríos and Tucumán. Argentina opens the Southern Hemisphere blueberry season ahead of both Peru and Chile, which is its whole commercial position.

That early window is also its vulnerability: it is short, it is competing directly with the tail of the Peruvian crop, and the fruit still mostly flies. A sea programme out of Argentina is a bet on a specific arrival week.

Roughly November to January, out of Patagonia and Mendoza. A small crop next to Chile’s, and a late one within its own hemisphere — Patagonian fruit is among the last Southern Hemisphere cherries of the season.

That lateness is the point. Argentine cherries land in the weeks when Chilean supply is thinning and the Chinese New Year window is at its tightest, which is when a container is worth the most and a delay costs the most.

Roughly April to September out of Entre Ríos and Corrientes, alongside the lemon programme and often through the same ports.

Argentine easy-peelers compete directly with Peruvian and South African fruit in the same months, and a good share goes to Russia and to Eastern Europe rather than to the EU. What reaches Rotterdam in a given year depends on where the exporters found the better price.

Roughly November to March out of Mendoza. Argentina is the largest garlic exporter outside China and this is a storage crop, so the window below is the shipping season rather than the harvest.

Garlic is about as robust as sea freight gets, and what it is sensitive to is humidity rather than temperature. Garlic that travels damp sprouts and moulds — a container condition problem, not a transit time one.