Bulk Chilean cherries arriving in Argentina are putting pressure on prices and reigniting the debate over costs: CAPCI calls for measures to survive.
According to Andean producers, the early arrival of “bulk” Chilean cherries from December has driven prices down in Argentina, and growers warn that imports in January and February will triple compared with the five-year average.
The Chilean cherry crisis has added a new chapter to its regional impact. This week, Argentine producers issued a public appeal through the press, stating that the early arrival and large volumes of fruit from Chile, including bulk shipments, are depressing domestic prices and complicating the sale of local production just ahead of the supply peak.
“Under these conditions and with falling prices, we are losing competitiveness,” said Aníbal Caminiti, director of the Argentine Chamber of Integrated Cherry Producers (CAPCI). He added that “in January and February” cherry imports will triple compared with the average of the past five years and that, beyond price adjustments, “it has simply been difficult to sell the fruit.”
Behind the conflict lies a structural factor: scale. Reports cited by specialized media indicate that Argentina produces around 14,000 tonnes of cherries per year, while Chile’s production stands at approximately 625,000 tonnes.
This gap not only reshapes supply power but also translates, according to CAPCI, into a lower relative cost structure for Chile, making the entry of bulk fruit particularly sensitive, as it tends to lower the market’s price “floor.”
From the Chilean perspective, the production and export context helps explain why cherries are increasingly seeking new markets and destinations. The Odepa Fruit Bulletin reported that in the September 2024–April 2025 season, cherries were Chile’s leading fresh fruit export, reaching USD 3.3 billion FOB (around EUR 3 billion) and 625,000 tonnes, with significant growth in volume compared with the previous season.
The same report adds that the increase in volume shipped to China led to a decline in the average unit export price (according to preliminary estimates), suggesting a more competitive international market and the need to maximize commercial alternatives.
In Argentina, CAPCI has focused on “internal competitiveness”. The association points to costs such as energy, with significant increases in production areas like Neuquén, and calls for measures such as reducing the VAT burden on electricity bills and simplifying VAT refunds for exporters in order to improve cash flow.
Caminiti himself acknowledges that, from the Argentine consumer’s perspective, greater supply could boost consumption of a product that is traditionally expensive. But for local producers, he insists, the arrival of Chilean cherries under these conditions represents competition that is difficult to sustain unless internal costs are addressed.
Source: Diario Frutícola
With just 3,760 tonnes exported between October and December, the cherry industry is facing its worst start to the season since 2019, due to the severe impact of adverse weather.
The start of the 2025/26 season for Argentine cherry exports is far from promising. Rather than consolidating the growth trend shown by the sector in recent years, the first official data confirm a complex scenario marked by severe weather impacts, a sharp decline in exported volumes, and a significant shift in destination markets.
The result is a heavy blow for a sector that had been striving to establish itself as one of Argentina’s most dynamic fruit industries.
According to data provided by the National Service for Agri-Food Health and Quality (SENASA), as of December 31, 2025, cherry exports in the final quarter of the year, a key period from October to December, amounted to just over 3,760 tonnes. This figure represents a 38% year-on-year decline and a 19% drop compared with the average export volume for the same period over the past five years.
To find a lower volume than that recorded at the end of 2025, one has to go back to 2019, when exports in the final quarter reached around 3,470 tonnes. The contrast is even more striking considering that in the final quarter of 2024 exports exceeded 6,000 tonnes, marking the best result in the recent series.
This historical overview highlights a structural reality of Argentina’s cherry sector: while exports show a long-term growth trend, that evolution is marked by high volatility. And that volatility, in most cases, has a decisive factor: weather.
This season, weather has undoubtedly been the main cause of the production decline. Heavy rainfall and hailstorms affected large parts of the production areas, especially in northern Patagonia, causing significant damage to both fruit volume and quality.
As a direct consequence, a significant share of production originally destined for export had to be redirected to the domestic market. This decision was not strategic but defensive: faced with the inability to guarantee adequate quality standards for demanding markets and with health risks linked to prolonged storage of damaged fruit, many companies opted to “move fast” and sell on the local market.
Heavy rain and hail compromised fruit quality and storability, limiting overseas shipments.
Damage caused by excess water and hail directly affects cherry storability. Fruit with micro-cracks, bruising, or firmness issues struggles to withstand long journeys and complex logistics chains, such as those required for export to distant markets. In this context, diverting such fruit to the domestic market has become, for many producers and exporters, the only practical alternative to minimize greater losses.
Beyond the overall decline in volumes, the 2025/26 season clearly shows a shift in the export destination mix for Argentine cherries. The contrast with the final quarter of 2024 is striking.
At that time, China was the main destination for Argentine exports, accounting for 36% of shipments, followed by the United States with 30%. However, in the October–December 2025 quarter, the leadership position changed: the United States absorbed 36% of exports, while China fell to 26%.
In relative terms, the U.S. market grew by six percentage points, while China lost 12 points in the export matrix. This shift is neither random nor solely due to a temporary situation: it reflects a deliberate decision by Argentine exporters to reduce their exposure to the Chinese market.
The immediate precedent helps explain this behavior. During the previous season, prices in China collapsed due to a significant oversupply, mainly from Chile, combined with quality issues affecting part of that exportable supply. Added to this were expectations that volumes reaching the Chinese market in the 2025/26 season would be even higher than in the previous cycle, suggesting that price and saturation problems could persist.
Private sector data confirm that these expectations were not unfounded. This season, cherry prices in China have declined significantly compared with last year. However, the market continues to pay relatively high prices for fruit that stands out for its quality.
The problem is that high-quality fruit has become the exception rather than the rule. Most of the supply reaching the Chinese market is heterogeneous, with significant variation in size, firmness, and overall condition. This heterogeneity has a direct impact on retail prices and ultimately drags down the market average.
In this context, cherries lacking distinctive attributes are the ones that suffer the most and, unfortunately, they currently predominate. For Argentine exporters, sending medium- or low-quality fruit to a demanding and volatile market like China involves a high level of risk, especially in a season marked by production issues.
Beyond changes in relative market shares, when exports are analyzed in absolute terms, the picture is even more striking. The decline in shipments to various destinations has been truly significant.
China has lost relevance as a destination for Argentina due to falling prices and quality issues, while the United States has gained market share in a campaign marked by shortages.
In China’s case, Argentine cherry exports collapsed by 60% year on year during the final quarter of 2025. In nominal terms, this represents around 1,200 tonnes less shipped to that market.
Although the United States gained a relative share in the export mix, it was not immune to the overall trend. In absolute terms, shipments to that country fell by 25%, equivalent to around 500 tonnes less than in the same period of the previous year. In other words, the relative growth of exports to the United States reflects more the decline in other destinations than a real increase in shipped volumes.
Another data point that helps quantify the damage caused by the storms is the analysis of export origins. Charts breaking down shipments by province clearly show the sharp decline in the share of Río Negro and Neuquén, the country’s two main historic producing regions.
In the case of Río Negro, total exports in the final quarter of 2025 reached 1,230 tonnes, around 1,000 tonnes less than in the same period of the previous year. The year-on-year decline was 50%, and its share of total exports fell from 41% to 33%, a loss of eight percentage points.
Neuquén showed a similar but even more pronounced trend. In the final quarter of 2024 it exported 1,448 tonnes, while in 2025 it reached just 518 tonnes. This represents a 65% drop in exports and a loss of nine percentage points in market share, falling from 25% to 14%.
Mendoza also recorded declines in absolute terms, on the order of around 300 tonnes, but managed to keep its share within the export matrix relatively stable.
The clear winner in this first part of the campaign was Chubut. The province accounted for 39% of total Argentine exports and increased its share by almost 20 percentage points compared with the previous campaign, benefiting from relatively better weather conditions and a lower impact from extreme events.
In short, weather impacts were decisive in the sharp decline in cherry exports recorded in this early phase of the season. Industry representatives agree that this negative trend will continue throughout January and February, with February being particularly short in terms of activity, and that no significant changes are expected compared with the relative declines observed at the start of the cycle.
The season is said to have been significantly shortened: harvest was brought forward and accelerated in an attempt to recover as much fruit as possible in acceptable condition. But this effort was not enough to offset the damage caused by adverse weather, which once again demonstrated its decisive role in a delicate activity such as cherry production.
The start of the 2025/26 season therefore places the sector before a major challenge: rebuilding volumes, recovering markets, and above all reducing vulnerability to extreme weather events that, year after year, seem to be less exceptional and increasingly the norm.
Source: Más Producción Editorial +P.
Opening image source: Argentina.gob
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