2023-12-20 01:04:02
After two years of increases, the price of bananas is coming under the full brunt of the pressure from supermarkets’ anti-inflation measures. Banana cartons will not escape a price drop in 2024.
The prosperous period only lasted two years, a period during which the price of a box – 18 kg – of bananas fluctuated between 14 and 15 euros. But the commercial negotiations which are ending with European large-scale retailers for next year leave little hope of seeing the improvement continue.
Supermarkets are on the lookout for every penny, and want to show that they are participating in deflation, and “ as often, it’s the banana that will toast », summarizes Denis Loeillet, banana sector economist at CIRAD, the Center for International Cooperation in Agricultural Research for Development.
The banana will be more affected
To justify this pressure on prices, large distributors highlight the reduction in inputs and freight rates. An undeniable drop on this last point for connections with the dollar zone, that is to say the American continent, but in Africa, where maritime rotations are fewer, transport prices weigh more than elsewhere on materials firsts. The African banana will therefore suffer a little more than the others next year, since it will have to align with the prices of a globalized market.
The upstream sector is finding it all the more difficult to accept the looming drop in prices as it is subject to more and more injunctions, in terms of sustainability or even biosecurity to prevent the development of diseases, specifies Denis Loeillet. In other words, the constraints are more and more numerous, for a price which will not be revalued, on the contrary.
One euro less per box
Even if it is still too early to anticipate the speed at which prices will fall, the drop should be at least one euro per box in 2024, according to the economist.
This turnaround is accompanied by another fundamental change: the market tends to become more rigid. The marketing of fruit via annual contracts is gradually becoming more widespread, at prices therefore negotiated in advance. This leaves fewer volumes available for one-off sales at the market price at a “time T” – “spot price” – prices that are sometimes more advantageous for the exporter.
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