Cherry export season by country

Roughly November to January, with the commercially critical weeks being whichever ones land the fruit in China before Chinese New Year. Chile is effectively the only Southern Hemisphere origin shipping cherries at scale.

Everything about this window is compressed. Dedicated charter vessels sail direct to Asia, transshipment is avoided because it costs days the season does not have, and a rolled booking in December does not move a shipment — it changes what the shipment is worth.

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 June and July out of Washington and Oregon, opening in California in May and finishing in August. It is the Northern Hemisphere’s volume cherry window and the mirror image of Chile’s — the same fruit, largely the same Asian buyers, the opposite half of the year.

It is also the textbook airfreight programme: picked, packed and flown within a day or two, because the price decays faster than the fruit does. The sea volume is real, it goes on the fastest services available, and a rolled sailing in this window is not recoverable.

Roughly June and July, opening in the south in May and finishing at altitude in August. Turkey is the largest cherry exporter in the world, and Ziraat 0900 — Napoleon — is most of what leaves.

The window is the Northern Hemisphere’s answer to Chile, six months out of phase with it, and it sells to Germany, Russia and increasingly the Far East. Turkish cherries reach a European buyer by truck in two or three days, so the sea question on this row is only about the long lanes east.