Crisis and opportunity for Chilean cherries: impact of Lunar New Year 2026

In a market where Chinese New Year is the main driver triggering fruit sales, most of the cherry volume has already been shipped this season.

For this reason, the managing director of Joy Wing Mau Group, María José García, believes that the fruit available for Chinese New Year will likely come from southern regions.

She also expects prices to increase and to be favorable for this fruit, which in terms of volume will be lower for the major Chinese holiday.

A season unlike the others

No fruit season is ever the same as another. The Chilean fruit industry knows this well and, in the cherry sector, recent campaigns have been very different, each marked by specific events.

The 2025/26 season is also different, and industry players might think that “nothing could be more difficult than the previous one,” but new situations always emerge.

María José García is the commercial director of Joy Wing Mau Group, one of the leading fresh fruit importers in China, which this season will handle as a group 20% of Chilean cherries in that market.

According to García, “this has been a very demanding and difficult season to manage, especially because there have been many early varieties that are not of good quality; that is the reality,” warning that this fruit did not arrive in good condition at destination.

Early varieties and logistical challenges

“We have seen very heterogeneous production from different growers,” she says.

All varieties arriving before Santina have in fact shown very uneven performance.

“The business grew in the early window with varieties that were not well received in China, mainly because they arrive very soft,” warns María José García, adding that the challenge of the 2025/26 season has been significant, as Chinese New Year falls on February 17, while a large percentage of Chilean production is early.

“This created a complicated mismatch, because historically much of the demand and purchasing of cherries is triggered by Chinese New Year. It is the reflection and the question a client asked me a few days ago: who sells large quantities of empanadas in August for September 18?”

The bet on early varieties

The concrete fact is that the industry bet on new early varieties that did not arrive well in China.

After the arrival of Santina, a certain recovery was recorded. “Historically, weeks 1 and 2 are peak arrival weeks, when all promotions are concentrated.

But this season, in weeks 1 and 2 we are far from Chinese New Year. There will probably be few cherries available for real sales in the days immediately preceding Chinese New Year.

If it were three weeks earlier, a lot of fruit would be sold, but this season there will be almost none,” explains the commercial director of Joy Wing Mau Group.

– From a commercial standpoint, is that good or bad?
– It is bad. What drives demand? Chinese New Year. And if Chile has already shipped almost all of its fruit volume, it was sold during a period when cherry demand was not that strong.

Misaligned demand

The fruit that will likely be available for Chinese New Year will come from the south, where it has rained, or from Chile Chico, which produces higher-quality fruit.

I expect prices to rise and good results to be achieved for that fruit, but in terms of volume it will be limited.

– This season was negatively affected by a later Chinese New Year.
– Exactly. This year, production and sales were significantly misaligned with Chinese New Year, which is the main engine of strong demand for this product.

This year it is so far removed from the peak purchasing weeks, in general terms. However, for the fruit that arrives right at the holiday, the market will probably be good.

Quality issues

But the proportion of that volume will be much lower.
– And also, as you said, early fruit did not arrive well at destination.
– This year there has been a lot of sales, especially of Nimba.

There were even attempts to prevent it from reaching China this season. This has happened before, because it does not arrive in good condition in China.

We discussed it, but despite this there are growers who continue to ship it, and there are no other markets capable of absorbing fruit at China’s scale.

There is a non-negligible volume that we are forced to send, and this has complicated things for us.

When a season starts with a product that is not ideal for the market, prices drop and then it becomes difficult to recover, because increasing prices by 20, 30 or 40 yuan (around €2.60–€5.20) is not easy at all.

Prices and varieties

– Have prices been lower than last season?
– If we look week by week, probably yes. Prices dropped “more quickly” than last year because at the beginning we had more fruit.

It is an early season. Since the pandemic, late fruit has delivered negative results.

Before the pandemic, there could be a good or bad year depending on the timing of Chinese New Year. Even so, there were brands that sold very well even after the holiday.

This no longer happens, because all new plantings have been established with early fruit.

For example, much more Santina has been planted, along with new varieties that did not perform as expected.

Consumer preferences

And there is a lot of Santina, which is an excellent variety and highly appreciated by the Chinese consumer, especially in a year with a late Chinese New Year.

Even though it is a good variety, this will put pressure on prices, which will tend to decline.

What happened is that no one expected such a sharp drop.
– Does the Chinese consumer still like Santina?
– Yes, they still like it.

What has clearly emerged is that these new varieties are not as good as expected.

They arrive at a “medium” level, as the Chinese like to say. In my view, they are neither competitive varieties nor capable of opening a market.

In fact, we are opening the season with fruit that is average or below average. As a result, the flagship product of Chilean fruit farming starts the season with varieties that are not truly good.

Image and quality standards

– And this damages the image of the industry.
– Obviously. That is one aspect.

Moreover, there are no real agreements like those, for example, in the New Zealand kiwi sector, which is what Zespri achieved.

It is a very consistent brand, where everyone agrees on how to produce, how to harvest, and how to pack the product.

Efforts to improve quality

– This season there has been insistence on improving size distribution in orchards. Has better-sized fruit reached the market?
– An effort was made to work on size issues.

Until last year, in China they bought whatever you shipped, and nothing forced you to work harder in the orchards.

Last year there was some pressure, but orchards are orchards, and in the end there is always small fruit.

An effort was made to ship larger fruit, but in the end everything was shipped. It is part of the idiosyncrasy of the business.

Today we see that the United States and Southeast Asia have been added, but no one is looking for small sizes.

Alternative markets and outlook

– How do you think the season will end?
– I don’t know, I wouldn’t dare say. I still expect it to be a better year than the previous one.

Better work has been done in the orchards, and packing and fruit handling operations improve every year.

However, this year there was cold weather, some pollination issues, and even some rainfall.

I want to believe that we will close with average results that are better than last season. But I think what happens in the next two or three weeks will be crucial.

– Was it possible to “divert” fruit to other markets?
– As a company, we have offices in South Korea, Hong Kong, Singapore, and Vietnam, and we sell fruit in Southeast Asia.

These are growing markets. In fact, this year volumes to these markets increased significantly, and fruit quality requirements there are also very demanding.

I am concerned, for example, about Taiwan, because it is a small market that saturates quickly.

In general, in Southeast Asia these are markets that tend to saturate fast: they have high sales velocity, and once saturated, prices tend to drop sharply.

Cover photo source: María José García – Joy Wing Mau Group.

Source: Redagricola

Rodrigo Pizarro Yáñez
Redagricola

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