Morocco fresh produce export calendar

Roughly October to May out of Souss-Massa around Agadir, grown for the months when Northern European production has stopped and Spanish supply is at its thinnest.

Almost none of it is a container programme: volume moves by refrigerated truck through Tanger Med and across to Algeciras, then overland. That routing is faster than any sea option and is why Moroccan tomatoes reach a Rotterdam buyer in days.

Roughly September to March. Moroccan easy-peelers are now a fixture of the European autumn, and Nadorcott in particular is the late variety that carries the season into the new year.

Morocco and Spain are direct competitors in these months, and the two together are the reason Southern Hemisphere mandarins have no market until about April. Reading the Peruvian and South African windows without this one explains nothing.

Roughly November to April, out of the Souss and Gharb regions. Maroc Late is the variety that carries the tail of the season and is the one most European buyers know by name.

Moroccan oranges compete with Spanish and Egyptian fruit in the same months on a price basis, and the differentiator is usually freight rather than the fruit — which is why the truck-and-ferry routing matters more here than a vessel schedule.

Roughly January to June out of the Loukkos and Gharb regions. Moroccan blueberry has scaled very fast and now fills the European spring — the gap between the end of the Peruvian and Chilean programmes and the start of the European harvest.

Freshness is the entire proposition. Fruit picked in Morocco can be on a Rotterdam shelf within days, against three weeks or more for Southern Hemisphere fruit, and on a berry that difference is most of the shelf life.

Two windows either side of the summer, roughly October to December and February to June, out of the same northern growing regions as the blueberries.

Soft berries have a shelf life measured in days, which is exactly why Morocco can sell them into Europe and Latin America mostly cannot. This is a truck trade, and the window is the crop calendar rather than a shipping schedule.

Roughly April to August, opening the European watermelon season ahead of the Spanish crop.

Watermelon is heavy, cheap per kilo and does not repay a long voyage, so this is overland trade to Europe and nothing else. The window matters for what it does to price when the Spanish crop arrives, not for shipping planning.

Roughly October to April out of the Gharb and Loukkos regions, in the months when Peru has finished and Chile is winding down.

Moroccan avocado is small next to the Latin American origins but it is growing quickly, and it has the one advantage none of them can match: fruit on a European shelf within days of picking rather than weeks. On a product sold at a specific ripeness, that is worth a premium.