Freska Produce International's Gary Clevenger Discusses Tight Latin American Mango Market

Mangos may be one of the world’s favorite fruit, but they are in limited supply at the moment. I recently had the opportunity to learn exactly why from Freska Produce International’s Managing Principal Gary Clevenger.

“Currently the mango market is very tight out of Mexico; fruit from Peru is over for the most part,” Gary says. “Cool weather has been the issue with mangos out of Mexico. Guatemala has started to ship in very limited quantities, but I think they will begin to ship in higher volumes to take advantage of the higher dollar U.S. market then they are used to.”

With Peru’s season winding to a close and limited volume out of Mexico, the market has tightened up. But Gary tells me we can expect availability to increase as more growing regions become active, and he notes that honey mangos have been in exceptionally good supply.

“There should be better availability over the next few weeks as other regions get into the mix,” Gary explains. “Honey mangos continue to have good availability and should continue into the new regions. Prices on honey mangos are actually below what red mangos are getting at the current moment, which is unusual. Volume out of Mexico this year is behind last year by around 2.6 million lbs, which translates to 265,000 cases. I would expect it to catch up at some point as each of the last couple years in Mexico volume has been higher.”