Orange export season by country

Roughly April to October, which is the single largest thing South Africa ships. Navels open the season and Valencias carry the second half of it.

Citrus peak is also when Durban and Cape Town are at their most congested and reefer equipment is at its tightest. The harvest is predictable and so is the shortage that goes with it — treat a rolled booking in July as a likely event rather than an exception.

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 December to May, and it is the biggest thing Egypt ships. Egyptian Valencias land while Spanish fruit is still on the tree and undercut it on price, which is most of the commercial argument.

The advantage is geography rather than agriculture. Alexandria and Damietta are days from Southern Europe and about a week from the North Sea ports, so the fruit arrives fresher than anything from the Southern Hemisphere and cheaper than anything grown in the EU.

Roughly November to May. Spain is Europe’s own orange supply, and the months it covers are the months Egypt, Morocco and South Africa are all pricing against.

For an importer the useful reading here is the shoulders. The weeks in November and again in May, when the Spanish crop is opening or finishing, are the weeks an imported programme has room — and the middle of the Spanish season is when it does not.

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.

California navels run from about November to May, peaking after the new year, with Valencias behind them into the summer. Korea, Japan and China are the markets.

This is a variety and sizing trade more than a seasonal one. Navels are sold as eating fruit on a brand and to a size specification, so a container that arrives with the wrong count per carton is a commercial problem rather than a quality one — and it is a problem no amount of temperature discipline would have prevented.

Roughly November to April out of Sicily and Calabria. The blood oranges — Tarocco, Moro, Sanguinello — are the part of this window nobody else supplies in volume, and they are grown where they are because the temperature swing on the slopes around Etna is what colours them.

That makes it a variety trade rather than a citrus trade. A buyer sourcing blood oranges has one serious origin and a short window, which is the opposite of the position they are in on navels, where Spain, Egypt, South Africa and California are all quoting.