Month by month
Spanish oranges in May, after ours have gone
Our last fruit came off the tree in April, so nothing on this page is an offer. The Spanish window runs on without us: IVIA puts Valencia Late picking from late March to the middle of June, and in the weekly series we publish both Spanish orange lines reach their highest values of the whole run in the closing fortnight of May.
The figures
| Month | May |
|---|---|
| On the tree in this area | Nothing of ours is picked this month |
| Varieties in window | 0 |
| Spanish window still open | Valencia Late, picked from 20 March to 15 June according to IVIA |
| Weekly market observations we hold | ISO weeks 19 to 22, with the Navel and Lanelate lines quoted in all four |
| Where those two lines peak | The closing fortnight of the month, the highest point of their whole run |
What it changes on an order
You have a shelf listing to hold through the spring
We cannot fill it and saying so in April or May costs you less than discovering it in June. The cultivar that carries these weeks in Spain is Valencia Late, and a grower who has it should be asked for a picking date rather than for a month.
You read the published market for a buying signal
The high point of the Spanish orange year in this series falls in a month when the fruit behind it is a different cultivar from the one those lines described in winter. A comparison across the campaign is comparing two different oranges.
You are planning the coming autumn
The quiet months are the cheap ones for this conversation. Sizes, formats, labelling and the weeks you want covered all settle faster now than they do when a packing station is running at full stretch.
What this note does not settle
- We hold no measurement of our own on Valencia Late. Its window here is the IVIA variety datasheet, which describes the cultivar as grown in Spain rather than a lot that anyone can ship.
- A peak in a national weekly average describes one calendar year at one stage of the chain. It is neither a forecast nor a seasonal rule, and it is not our price.
- Nothing here covers the stored fruit that continues to move in May, whose condition is a question for the cold store rather than for a harvest calendar.
Source: Instituto Valenciano de Investigaciones Agrarias, Valencia Late datasheet, European Commission, fruit and vegetables market observatory
The market peaks and we are not in it
There is something uncomfortable about a page that says we have nothing to sell and then points at the strongest part of the published year. It is worth saying anyway, because the shape of it is useful to a buyer. Spanish orange prices in the Commission series climb through the spring and reach the highest point of the whole run just as our own campaign finishes.
The cultivar behind that figure is not one we grow. Valencia Late carries the Spanish window through these weeks and it was planted for precisely that job, holding on the tree long after the navels have come off. When our last navel was picked in April the market did not empty out. It changed hands.
Using the quiet month for the noisy one
Spring is when a citrus programme gets designed rather than executed. Nobody is chasing a truck, no packing station is under pressure, and questions that take three days to answer in November get answered in an afternoon. If there is anything about the coming campaign you want settled in writing, this is the season to settle it.
The list worth working through is short. Which weeks you need covered and which of them we can reach; what size band your customer genuinely checks on arrival; what format the fruit has to be in; and what happens in a week that cannot be filled. Settle those now and the autumn conversation starts from a specification instead of a blank enquiry.
Talk to the grower
Tell us the variety, the sizes and the delivery week you need. You get a delivered price and what we can commit to in writing, from the person who picks the fruit.
The grower handles enquiries. Response times are still to be confirmed.