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April 2003, World Apple Report Highlights

Ahold's Unhappy Birthday
The Dutch company, Ahold, became the world's third largest retailing company through aggressive acquisitions. It had acquired a number of prominent U.S. supermarket chains. It appears that an Ahold subsidiary, U.S. Foodservice, had become too aggressive in its accounting practices, recording discount from suppliers that it did not actually get. Some employees of these suppliers have been implicated in the scheme to inflate allowances. The investigation and the likely fallout will add one more complication to suppliers whose relationship with the bigger retailers is already difficult. However, it is unlikely to slow the continued consolidation in the food distribution system.

Southern Hemisphere Squeeze
Southern Hemisphere suppliers have been the biggest beneficiaries of the trend towards 12-month availability of fresh apples and other fruit. Since the mid-1990s, an increased flow of Southern Hemisphere apple exports has met with sharply lower real prices. Despite this, these countries have even bigger supplies coming along in the future. However, simply being off-season suppliers no longer guarantees profitability. These countries need to find a new set of strategies for marketing their increased production.

Erratic Trends in U.S. Trade
The volume of U.S. exports of fresh apples fell 16.6% in calendar year 2002, while average price rose by 10.6%. Exports to the two largest markets, Mexico and Taiwan, fell by almost one third. At the same time, fresh apple imports set a new record of about 9 million cartons. U.S. imports of concentrated apple juice (CAJ) fell by 23% in 2002. However, average price remained unchanged. China supplied the largest volume of CAJ, but was not the lowest priced supplier in 2002. That honor fell to Argentina and Brazil, whose currencies had sagged against the U.S. dollar. Fresh pear imports and exports were off slightly in 2002, whereas canned pear imports were higher.

Special Statistics
Southeast Asia: Battle for Fresh Apple Market Share, 1990-2001 (chart)
Southern Hemisphere: Index of export Volume and Deflated Prices, 1986-2001 (chart)
U.S. Sales of Major Retailers, 1999-2002 (table)
U.S.: Trade in Fresh Apples, 1997-2002 (table)
U.S.: Trade in Concentrated Apple Juice, 1997-2002 (table)

The authoritative guide to the world apple business today.

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