Mango season by country

Roughly December to March out of Piura, shipping through Paita. Kent is the variety European buyers will see almost exclusively.

Peru’s mango window is the one most exposed to weather: an unusually warm year shifts the whole harvest and can compress a three-month programme into six weeks, which then arrives all at once into a market that was planning for a steady flow.

Roughly March to July, moving north through the growing regions as the season progresses — Chiapas first, Sinaloa last. Ataulfo is the variety Mexico is known for; Kent and Tommy Atkins carry the export volume.

The window picks up almost exactly where Peru’s and Ecuador’s finish, which is what lets a buyer run a mango programme across the whole year with three origins.

Roughly October to January, the earliest of the three American mango windows on this site. It hands over to Peru in December and to Mexico in the spring.

Ecuador’s window is short and its volume is smaller than Peru’s, so it is usually the origin that opens a programme rather than the one that carries it.

Roughly August to December out of the São Francisco valley, shipping through Pecém and Natal, with fruit available for much of the rest of the year at lower volume. Irrigation and pruning set this harvest rather than the season does, which is why the window looks nothing like Peru’s despite the two countries sharing a hemisphere.

Brazil’s advantage on mango is distance. The north-eastern ports are the closest South American loading points to Europe, and a shorter voyage on fruit that ripens in transit is worth more than it sounds.

Roughly March to June, running just ahead of and alongside the Mexican window. Guatemala is the smaller of the two and is often the origin that opens the Northern Hemisphere season.

Volume is modest enough that a Guatemalan mango programme is usually a supplement to a Mexican one rather than a replacement for it — useful in the weeks at the start of the season when Mexican fruit is not yet in full flow.

Roughly June to October, serving the Mediterranean and Gulf markets in the months when the American origins have finished.

Egyptian mango is a short-haul trade — the varieties are grown for regional taste rather than for European retail — so it rarely competes directly with Peruvian or Brazilian fruit. It is on this calendar because it fills a month nothing else does.

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.

April and May for Alphonso, with Kesar behind it into June. It is the export India is famous for and the one that barely uses a container: the fruit is picked mature, ripens fast and is worth enough per kilo to fly.

What does go by sea goes on controlled-atmosphere equipment, to the Gulf and to the UK, with a buyer who has done the arithmetic on ripening at destination. Read the window below as the crop calendar and check the routing separately.