Egypt’s amazing growth in Chinese frozen strawberry market. Fresh exports ahead?

Egypt is expanding its share of the Chinese market for imported frozen strawberries, reports EastFruit. The Egyptian exports to China from January to November 2023 have already surpassed the total amount of the previous year, making Egypt the top supplier of frozen strawberries to China for the fifth consecutive year.

“Six years ago, China was the world’s fourth-largest exporter of frozen strawberries, and it exported much more than Egypt. But the situation has changed dramatically since then, and last year, Egypt exported several times more frozen strawberries than China. In fact, the import and export volumes of frozen strawberries in China are almost the same now,” says Yevhen Kuzin, Fruit & Vegetable Market Analyst at EastFruit.

Egypt managed to increase its exports of frozen strawberries to China by tenfold from 2018 to 2022, and in the first 11 months of 2023, it shipped nearly 35 thousand tons, a 9% increase from the whole of last year. Most of the growth happened in the second half of 2023, while in the first half, the Egyptian frozen strawberry exports to China sometimes were even lower than the year before.

Read also: How Morocco & Egypt reshape UK’s horticultural market after Brexit

It is worth noting that China imported 39.7 thousand tons of frozen strawberries and exported 40.2 thousand tons from January to November 2023. Besides Egypt, other minor suppliers included Chile and Morocco. In turn, China mainly exported to its neighboring Asian countries (Thailand, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Philippines, Malaysia, Vietnam, Indonesia, etc.), as well as some distant markets (Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Brazil, etc.).