For December 2026, a more stormy climate scenario is forecast due to El Niño, with a potential production decline similar to the one recorded last year in the Río Negro Valley.
In October 2026, Santiago Heil, head of foreign trade at an Argentine cherry exporter, described the functional limits of packaging in cold chains for perishable goods in a precise phrase: “Packaging is not a hospital: it cannot heal or cure what the field delivers in poor condition.” With more than two decades of experience in blueberries and cherries, Heil points to a direct implication for buyers of packaging for fresh or refrigerated foods: for perishable products, packaging specifications cannot be designed as a quality safety net. They must be part of a system in which the cold chain is already working properly from the field onward.
By the end of the week, Argentine cherry exports send around 45% of their volume to Asia, more than 30% to the United States and Canada, and nearly 20% to Europe and the United Kingdom. Each route involves different requirements for packaging, phytosanitary treatments and temperature management. The US market has the most stringent phytosanitary requirements; countries such as the United Arab Emirates and Qatar have dedicated refrigerated infrastructure at airports to protect the cold chain during transfers. For December 2026, a more stormy climate scenario is forecast due to El Niño, with a potential production decline similar to the one recorded last year in the Río Negro Valley.
Destination: Asia
About 45%
Destination: United States and Canada
More than 30%
Destination: Europe and the United Kingdom
Nearly 20%
The Argentine cherry export chain is built on a principle that every fresh produce packaging buyer should keep in mind: lowering pulp temperature as soon as possible after harvest is the first and most important control point. Everything that follows—the packaging, container, vessel and customs—serves to preserve a condition that must already be in place before the fruit reaches the packing line.
Packaging with suitable thermal performance cannot make up for harvesting defects or progressive fungal growth; it only extends the shelf life of fruit that was already in acceptable condition. Heil’s account highlights a frequent problem in assigning responsibility during audits of perishable goods: when fruit arrives at its destination in poor condition, packaging is often the first thing blamed, even though the cause may lie several steps further back in the supply chain.
Phytosanitary requirements add another variable that directly affects specifications. Experience with blueberries from northern regions illustrates the risks: the pre-shipment cold treatment or methyl bromide fumigation required at the time meant pulp temperature had to be raised, compromising quality on arrival. When market-access requirements call for treatments that alter the product’s thermal conditions, packaging must avoid accelerating subsequent deterioration—a factor not always considered in the initial specifications.
For buyers of packaging for refrigerated foods or fresh export products, this case highlights three specific operational pressures.
First: packaging specifications cannot be separated from the upstream supplier’s cold-chain protocol. If packaging reaches a producer whose harvest quality varies, audit results at destination will be inconsistent even when the technical specifications are correct. This makes it harder to assign responsibility when claims arise and may pressure the buyer to revise specifications, even when the problem lies elsewhere in the supply chain.
Second: phytosanitary requirements in the destination market can change the conditions in which packaging is used without the buyer being consulted. A quarantine treatment that raises pulp temperature or exposes packaging to gases changes the conditions under which it must perform. Suppliers serving exporters active in multiple markets need to map the routes involving treatments that could compromise packaging integrity and document which conditions of use were validated during the original specification tests.
Third: climate risk directly affects volume availability and, consequently, the stability of packaging orders. Severe storms that hit the Río Negro Valley in the previous season significantly reduced production and exports from the area. Packaging suppliers serving exporters with a strong geographic concentration in this region may face a mismatch between supply commitments and actual demand.
The climate forecast for December 2026, shaped by El Niño and projected heavy rainfall, points to three areas to monitor.
If storms hit key production areas, exportable cherry volumes could fall, reducing packaging demand for the season and leaving suppliers with committed inventory. Exporters with the greatest concentration in areas without hail protection will be the first to revise their orders.
Meanwhile, Asian markets, which account for 45% of Argentine cherry exports, maintain cold-chain standards that require packaging to deliver consistent thermal performance over long transit times. If Argentine production declines, buyers in these markets will seek alternatives from other origins, quickly shifting demand towards different packaging specifications.
Finally, phytosanitary regulatory pressure in the US market—the most stringent in terms of pest requirements—could intensify if additional Argentine areas lose their pest-free status. This would require treatments not currently applied to cherries, with consequent changes to export packaging requirements for that market.
The account comes from a single operator, offering a valuable perspective that is nevertheless limited to their own operation. No aggregated data are available on how many Argentine cherry exporters have packing facilities certified for the different phytosanitary treatments required on each route. It is also unclear how consistent cold-chain infrastructure is across Asian airports, or whether the practice described for the United Arab Emirates and Qatar is routinely applied at other entry points in China or Singapore. Finally, the source does not precisely quantify the scale of the production decline in Río Negro in the previous season.
Have the packaging specifications you currently supply to customers exporting perishable goods been validated against the cold-chain protocols and phytosanitary treatments specific to each destination route, or do they assume temperature and exposure conditions that apply only to the most controlled stage of the supply chain?
Source: thepackagingbuyer.news
Image source: VCG / GETTY IMAGES
13 May 2024
‘I believe there will be few or many cherries this season, but with a lower price and less demand,’ says Oksana Gordiy, head of Umansk Fruit Company LLC. ‘Moreover, we cannot predict the situation with the war’.
14 Aug 2023
The study conducted in experimental orchards in Zaragoza (Spain) aimed to evaluate the impact of temperature on pollen kinetics in cherry trees comparing two cultivars with different levels of adaptation to temperature as pollen donors.
12 Nov 2026
Rain, cold and low sunlight are complicating the cherry season in Chile. Walter Masman warns of risks to fruit quality and harvest. For Santina, further rain could cause losses of 15–20%: a hypothetical scenario that depends on weather forecasts over the next few weeks.
12 Nov 2026
Argentine cherries, packaging and the cold chain: El Niño could reduce production in the Río Negro Valley during December 2026. Phytosanitary requirements and export routes shape packaging specifications and quality management across the global fresh produce supply chain.
