Mango growers are urging customers to celebrate the summer season by buying more of the fruit, as a glut in supply has sent prices plummeting.
Across the country, the oversupply of mangoes has seen prices drop dramatically – with the fruit going for as little as $1.90 each in some stores.
Brett Kelly, chief executive at Australian Mangoes, said the low price was being driven by an overlap in supply from different regions. Northern Territory mangoes normally get picked first in late November, followed by Queensland in the middle of December, then down to New South Wales and over to Western Australia.
According to Kelly, this year the NT harvest arrived late, while Queensland’s came early. “You’ve got a crossover of more mangoes hitting the markets at the one time, so that puts a bit of pressure on price,” he said.
“There will be a tremendous amount of volume over the next few months, so consumers will be able to get their mangoes and I know from past experience, they will support Australian farmers – they work hard to produce the best mangoes in the world.”
Although it may appear like a bumper harvest, Pia Piggott, a horticulture associate analyst at RaboResearch, said it is only up 14% on the previous year.
“But the supply in the past two weeks, and the next two weeks, is 600,000 trays of mangoes per week,” Piggott said. “Last year there was only one week where there were 600,000.”
Mangoes have actually seen a decline in the level of production since 2018, she said.
“This isn’t going to be the biggest mango season we’ve ever seen,” Piggott said. “The 2018 season was a record season, with 83,000 tonnes of mangoes.
“Since then there’s been a decline in production due to weather conditions. Last year, in particular, we saw a large decrease in production volume.
“That’s what is making it seem like there’s much more of a supply – but this year won’t compare to the 2018 year.”
Piggott said consumers would likely see low prices on mangoes until the first week of January when supply starts to drop off.
“After that, supply will decrease a lot more and that process will likely hem up the price a bit more,” she said.
While it’s good news for consumers, growers say they will struggle to make ends meet with the low price.
“There’s a lot of fruit not even making it to market, it ends up in the juicing markets, which is a very last resort because of the return growers get,” Paul Burke, the chief executive of NT Farmers, said.
“Our message would be: go and get yourself a mango daiquiri tonight and support the little blokes up here.”
Woolworths would not say how much sales were up from the previous year, but a spokesperson said customers were purchasing mangoes in huge numbers.
“Thanks to an abundance of top-quality mangoes at great value this season, we’ve seen customers buying more than ever before in recent weeks,” the spokesperson said.
“Last week our customers took home a record number of mangoes, and demand is expected to grow as we approach Christmas.
“Right now our growers are delivering great quality mangoes and we’re working with them to offer great prices to help more Australians enjoy mangoes this summer.”
