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Edgar Vhera Agriculture Specialist Writer
THE country has to date exported 10 by 40 reefers of lemons via Beira Port to Jebel Ali for the United Arab Emirates (UAE) market with all fruit originating from Macheke district in Mashonaland East province.
This was disclosed by the Horticultural Development Council (HDC) in its 2023 quarterly seasonal update for June.
In a part of the report titled: ‘New route to market through Beira opened,’ the HDC said this season saw the start of shipments through the Beira route, resuscitated after a 25-year pause.
“Our thanks go to the Transcom Sharaf team for braving it all to make this happen. So far, we have exported 10 x 40 reefers of lemons via Beira Port,” the seasonal report said.
A 40-reefer high-cube container can load 28 350 kilogrammes and is meant to keep refrigerated and frozen products goods at a constant temperature in transit. However, a local commentator who preferred anonymity, said the average weight for the 40-reefer was around 20 tonnes. This implies that the country has so far exported over 200 tonnes of lemons to UAE via Beira Port.
The seasonal update said on average it took 18 hours to move via road the goods to Beira port and no challenges were experienced with transport, at the border or packing in their facility.
“Each container is packed cautiously over a 2-hour period with many photos taken prior to and during the packing process with videos of temperature logger placement and start up. The average dwell time of the containers once packed to shipped on board is currently nine days, of which seven are in our facility and two in the port prior to loading,” continued the seasonal report.
The report said the lemons shipped using three different vessels with the first two averaging 27 days transit time to destination, while the third vessel took only 21 days.
“This transit time is higher than the usual average for that destination due to the current low export season out of Beira but will revert back to normal transit time of 16 days. We feel there is potential for a lot more volume to be exported out of Beira,” the report disclosed.
In a recent twitter post the HDC said the country’s lemon exports were set to increase 87 percent from 2 365 tonnes in 2022 to 4 425 tonnes this year.
Meanwhile, Zimbabwe and China last year signed a citrus trade protocol that was initiated in 2015 for the export of oranges for smallholder growers under the Shashi irrigation scheme.
The fresh citrus products to be exported to China from Zimbabwe include sweet orange (Citrus sinensis), mandarin orange (Citrus reticulata), grapefruit (Citrus paradisi), lemon (Citrus limon and aurantifolia) and sour orange (Citrus aurantium).
The opening of the Chinese market has given the country more options to use the short Mozambican port of Beira if cold sterilisation conditions are met and significant volumes are produced.
Current citrus exports to China will go via the port of Durban, as cold sterilisation standards at the Beira Port are acceptable between the country and China.
Online Reporter