Pear export season by country

Roughly February to June, running with the apple programme and frequently in the same booking.

Pears are less tolerant than apples of temperature drift in transit, and they are ripened at destination on the importer’s schedule. What a pear container’s reefer actually did on the voyage is worth more than what the schedule said it would do.

Roughly January to July out of the Río Negro and Neuquén valleys, shipping through San Antonio Este — a dedicated fruit port built for this trade.

Argentina is the Southern Hemisphere’s volume pear origin, ahead of both Chile and South Africa. The window opens earlier than either, which means Argentine fruit sets the opening price for the Southern Hemisphere pear season.

Roughly January to June, with the apple programme. Forelle is the variety South Africa is known for and it is largely a European trade.

Pears are less tolerant than apples of temperature drift, and they ripen at destination on the importer’s schedule — so what a container’s reefer actually did on the voyage is worth more than what the schedule said it would.

Roughly September to November out of Washington and Oregon, opening in August and shipping from storage into the new year.

Pears out of controlled-atmosphere storage are the least urgent cargo an American exporter loads, and that is exactly the risk. An unhurried box is the one that sits at the far end while somebody gets round to it. The fruit will be fine; the free time will not.

Ya pear and Fragrant pear are harvested from August and ship from about September into the new year, then out of storage through the spring. China is by a wide margin the largest pear exporter in the world.

These are not the varieties a European buyer is used to. A Ya pear is bought and eaten as a different thing from a Packham’s, which means this row is not a substitute for the Southern Hemisphere programmes further up the page — it is a separate trade that happens to share a word.

Nashi — the round, crisp Asian pear — runs from about August to November, peaking in the early autumn. Tottori and Chiba are the names on the box.

Nashi bruises like an apple and is graded like a peach, which is why it ships in a shallow single-layer tray. On a lane of a few days the fruit is never the problem; the losses on this row happen where the pallet is handled, not where the vessel is.