Citrus sales climb 8.2% in value in US

The spend on citrus fruit in the United States grew 8.2% year-on-year in the 52 weeks to July 30 to reach just under $3 billion.

But Nielsen data shows the rise in the volume of retail sales of citrus over the same period was not so marked, coming in at 3.6% to push the total to slightly over 2.27 billion lb.

While limes, oranges and lemons made the biggest contribution to the sales volumes, mandarins (39.6%) and oranges (26.8%) were the top fruits in terms of spend.

Compared to the previous year, sales of mandarins in the US enjoyed the strongest growth in both volume (up 12.7% to nearly 244 billion lb) and value (up 15.3%).

Also logging growth were limes (up 5.9% in volume and 14.6% in value) and lemons (up 4.7% in volume and 9.3% in value).

There was very little change for oranges, with the volume inching up 0.1% to just over 660 million lb and virtually the same spend.

Although the volume of grapefruit sales fell slightly (-2.6%) this year, the dollar value climbed 4.2%. Tangerines suffered the greatest fall, plummeting 26.7% in value and 16.1% in volume.

Specialty fruits, which make up a relatively small chunk of the citrus fruit market, also dropped both in volume (-11.6%) and value (-7.6%).