Honduras fresh produce export calendar

Year-round out of Puerto Cortés, on standing programmes. Honduras is where the modern banana trade was invented and the Sula valley still ships every week.

Puerto Cortés is the whole logistical story here: one port, deep water, good connections, and close enough to the US Gulf that discharge happens in days. A single-port origin is also a concentration risk — when the port has a problem, the country has a problem.

Roughly January to April out of Choluteca, on the Pacific side, aimed at the North American winter.

The window is short and the fruit does not wait. A melon programme here is priced on landing in a specific month, so the cost of a week’s delay is not a storage charge — it is the difference between the winter price and the spring one.

Year-round, with the banana programme.

Honduran plantain is a smaller trade than Ecuador’s or Colombia’s and it is almost entirely North American. It appears here because it ships continuously, which makes it a fallback when the larger origins are committed rather than a first call.

Roughly November to April, grown for the North American winter when domestic and Mexican greenhouse supply is at its thinnest.

Cucumbers are chilling-sensitive — below about 10°C they pit and turn translucent — which puts them at an awkward setpoint for a mixed load and rules out a long voyage. The programme works because Puerto Cortés is close. It would not work from further away.