“Peru is finishing up a challenging grape season”

“Uncharacteristic weather patterns have significantly effected Peru’s table grape season,” says Craig Stauffer, CEO of Vanguard International. The country recently declared an El Niño event, which means heavy rains, particularly in the North as well as in the Andes mountains. 

This was the first Peruvian grape harvest for Vanguard, following its acquisition of Agricola Challapampa about a year ago. “Challapampa’s farms are located near Ica, just north of the town of Ica in Villacuri,” shared Stauffer. “We were fortunate in the sense that Villacuri did not receive as much rain as some of the other grape growing regions in the country.” However, temperatures were more erratic this season, pushing harvest back a few weeks. “The harvest season ran longer than expected as we had to wait for the fruit to color up,” added Stauffer. As a result, harvest started late December and finished up last week. In a normal season, harvest would have wrapped up by the last week of February or the first week of March.

The extended harvest season created issues on the supply side. The delayed Peruvian season in combination with an accelerated Chilean season, resulted in abundant supplies in the market. The grape harvests of the two countries overlapped, causing increased competition and pricing challenges in the markets. “It was a challenging season that is not over yet. Although harvest has been finalized, Peru is still shipping grapes and so is Chile.” The charts below clearly show the delay this season versus the past season for seedless imports into the North American market. In the 2015-16 season peak departures were in weeks 47-52 whereas in the 2016-17 season peak departures were in weeks 52-02, a delay of 4 weeks. 

Vanguard International has a global marketing plan and ships its table grapes to North America, Asia, Europe, and Latin America. Stauffer mentioned that he sees increased supplies across all continents this season.

With the acquisition of Challapampa came the Pampa Fresh brand that was relatively unknown in North America. “Our team has done an excellent job in developing the brand. A robust social media campaign on Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, Twitter and YouTube has introduced the brand to North America’s retailers.”

Vanguard is also looking forward to its first Challapampa Tango mandarin harvest in July 2018.

For more information:

Craig Stauffer

Tel: 425-427-6113