Strawberry Market Forces

Geoff Langford, Berryworld

What is the strawberry market going to be like next season?

We have recently been reviewing several bits of information that are part of the complicated picture that ultimately impacts on the strawberry market.  Supply and demand are the key components that determine the price growers get paid for their fruit.

The key on the supply side is the number of plants being planted.  We have a pretty good idea of the numbers available for planting this season and our best guess, at the moment, is about 5-8% more than last year.  Not all these plants will get planted and there are all sorts of weather related factors and financial decisions that will determine the final numbers. 

Another important factor are the numbers of plants being sold into the home garden market and these numbers can vary a lot.  It is hard to get a handle on what drives home gardeners to buy strawberry plants.  In recent seasons reported sales to the nursery trade have been in the order of:

What I know of home gardeners is that they will often keep their plants for multiple years and will often keep their own runners. Both will impact on plant sales to that sector.  There are a number of opinions on the impact of home garden production.  It will certainly raise the profile of the fruit in the gardeners mind and might actually help with sales when plantings fail or perform poorly, as often happens.

The demand side has a number of factors driving consumption of fresh strawberries. 

Price is obviously one factor

Weighted average prices in the past 10 years, $/kg, Sept through December:

The 2023 year was the year of major plant shortage and the lack of supply led to a strong price reaction.  What this did do is raise people’s expectation about what price strawberries should sell for and burst the belief that they can’t sell for more than $2 a punnet.

The number of people in NZ eating strawberries is another key factor.  Every year for the last 20 years I have calculated the strawberry consumption per head of population in New Zealand.  It’s a pretty rough calculation as there is no definitive data on the actual production of strawberries in New Zealand. Based on plant sales and average yield data from our trials we can make a best guess.   From this total production guess, I take away exports and then divided that by the recorded NZ population at the end of each year.  Some growers will do twice the production level I used and I am aware that some growers do keep their plants for more than just one season, so it is just a best guess.

Using this calculation I have come up with approximate strawberry consumption in New Zealand of about 1.5kg/head.   This compares with countries like the USA with reported consumption of 4.6kg/head and UK at 3.5kg.  This highlights the opportunity for increasing consumption. 

So what would encourage increased consumption?

The answer is pretty easy. Good looking, good eating fruit.

The strawberry market is expanding.  It was only a few years ago, I asked a local supermarket why there were no strawberries available in February and I was told that the strawberry season finished at the end of January.  We now have a strong supply right through until late April.

Exports are the other option for increasing total sales.  Our exports peaked in 2015 with about 880 tonnes and there have been various reasons why exports have declined in recent years bottoming out in 2023 at just 70 tonnes.  They have shown some more positive signs last year increasing to 128 tonnes with Malaysia leading the way.

It is easy to get negative about increased strawberry plantings.  Let's focus on increasing consumption with good tasting fruit.