Australia fresh produce export calendar

Navels roughly June to October out of the Riverina, Riverland and Sunraysia, with Valencias carrying a thinner tail behind them. This is the Northern Hemisphere summer window, which is what the whole programme exists for — an Australian orange competes with nothing local in the market it is sold into.

Almost all of it is sold into Asia and North America, and the protocol markets are the constraint rather than the harvest: registered orchards, registered packhouses and a phytosanitary regime agreed country by country. A grower without the right registration has fruit and no market for it, which is a different problem from a short season.

Roughly April to October, opening with Imperials and finishing with the late Murcotts and Afourers. It runs a few weeks ahead of the Navel window and overlaps it in the middle, so an Australian citrus programme is usually both fruits on one booking.

Easy-peelers are the part of the Australian citrus trade most exposed to how the fruit is handled after discharge: they are thinner-skinned than a Navel, they are sold on appearance, and a container that waits at a congested terminal in Hong Kong loses condition faster than the oranges beside it.

Roughly January to May out of Sunraysia and the Murray Valley, shipping through Melbourne. The window sits behind Chile’s and ahead of the Northern Hemisphere’s own crop, which makes it the late-season supply into Asia rather than a competitor for the December weeks.

Australian grapes go into markets that buy on variety as much as on origin — the newer seedless varieties carry a premium in China and Japan that the older ones do not. As with grapes everywhere, the damage happens at the end: a container sitting after discharge does more harm than a slow voyage did.

Roughly September to January, starting in the Northern Territory around Darwin and moving south through Queensland as the season runs. It is the Southern Hemisphere spring window, and it hands over to the South American origins rather than competing with them.

A large share of the crop stays in Australia and a large share of what is exported flies. What goes by sea is the volume with a programme behind it into Asia, and it is fruit shipped hard and ripened at destination — so a late arrival is late, not recoverable by ripening faster.