Global Production Forecast

The production forecast built from the planting and production data projects the global industry volume crossing the 3,000 (000) MT milestone by 2025. This milestone will be driven by continued growth from the Americas, followed by Asia/Pacific* and then the EMEA region, the latter running about two years behind the Asia-Pacific with a similar rate of growth. The report team, however, feels that there is a probable downward trend in this forecast as there are real limitations to production and planting increases including access to land, water and labor, particularly in Latin America that put a constraint on growth which our model is not setup to capture. Additionally, it is the opinion of the report team that over the next couple of years the industry will begin to transition from high growth to a more mature stage, which will clearly have an effect on long term projections.

This year’s projections offer an important improvement in the technology used to create the predictions. By employing Machine Learning, our methodology identified the amount of history used by regressions that offers the least amount of error for each producing region in the dataset.

To add context to the projection, the charts present a scenario (solid line under the forecast) where the growth observed is coming exclusively from hectares planted in 2021 and coming into commercial operation within the next four years. This means that no additional plantings, or increases in yields are used in the forecasts offering the lowest realistic scenario for production, which we labeled as base in the charts. That said, knowing that plantings continue to go in the ground makes the zero growth scenario impossible, but it offers perspective allowing the likely future growth for the industry to lie somewhere between the forecast and the Zero Growth Scenario.

See Production Forecast Methodology at the end of the report for more information.

Americas Production Forecast

The Americas are the world’s powerhouse of production. By 2025 - 2025/26, the forecast created from our historical regression projects the region’s production to 1.6 billion kilos. This number needs to be taken cautiously as explained earlier.

After all the turmoil of the pandemic in 2020, 2021 has broken records for production seeing increased growth for every subregion. In South America the main driver of production continues to be Peru seeing even levels of growth in both hectares and yields. A considerable increase in plantings is expected to come on-line in Chile after 2023, adding significantly to production in the region if uncompetitive fields likely to be removed are not taken into consideration. North America’s production is also expected to continue to grow led by the Western US producers, although most other origins are expected to remain stable. Mexico/Central America, led by Mexico, is growing at a faster rate than South America, albeit from a much lower base. As both South America and Mexico/Central America regions come into maturity, the growth rate is expected to slow down and begin to stabilize, this is partially reflected in the forecast although, as previously mentioned the report team feels that these projections are likely high.

Asia/Pacific Production Forecast

The proverbial elephant in the room is Asia, predominantly led by China. There are a large number of hectares that are expected to come on-line in the next four years driving these numbers.

Echoing last year’s report and as outlined elsewhere in the document, it would be reasonable for a reader to suppose that the data available for China is likely higher than what may actually be produced*. Unfortunately the true values for Chinese production are simply not knowable today. To offer this information in a relevant context as best we can, the report team assumes that the real growth rate of plantings in hectares is 6% while, for the purposes of this forecast the yields have been maintained at their 2021 levels.

Importantly, growth in China is expected to continue. As of yet, Chinese blueberries have mostly been directed at internal consumers, however we are beginning to see limited exports in our datasets to regional partners like Singapore. As the country continues to grow, we may find Chinese blueberries with an increased role on the world stage.

*For more information see the Missing or Anomalous Production Data section in About the Data section.

EMEA Production Forecast

EMEA is expected to see a healthy growth rate bringing its production to nearly 650 (000) MT by 2025. Through the better part of the 2000’s the star player has been Southern Europe and North Africa, however, given the large number of hectares not in production that are expected to come on-line in the next four years, Eastern Europe is being projected to overtake these regions by 2025. Another origin to watch will be Africa which is seeing an impressive growth rate with production having matched Western/Central Europe this year, despite several production issues in South Africa, the continent’s leading producer.

Forecast Error

Offering context is crucial to the credibility of any forecast. In the table below we offer the values predicted last year for the 2021 season compared to the actual data collected.

Generally speaking the results of the forecast were quite good, only presenting an 8.8% variance compared to the actual numbers for 2021. The largest error came from Asia, which is mostly due to the lack of reliable data from China. The EMEA error was the lowest at 2.9% thanks to a particularly good forecast of So. Europe/No. Africa, while the Americas was a bit higher than EMEA at 6.37% despite a very low error rate for the US and Canada with higher rates for South America and Mexico/Central America.

Of note is that the error for each producing region is negative, meaning that our methodology consistently under-forecasted actual production. Part of this is due to the production numbers in 2020, which were lower than they could be because of COVID 19 and a myriad of related reasons. The forecasts created with these lower volumes hence produced lower forecasts. As the industry got back up to speed, regions out performed the prediction creating the observed error. Although this isn’t the only reason our forecast was likely to be off, the observation is part of the reasoning behind the emphasis being put on the improvements in the forecast methodology.

For a disaggregation of the forecast error by subregion please visit the Production Forecast Methodology section.

Abdelhadi Zougui

Alan Schreiber

Aleksandar Jovanovic

Alicia Adler

Andrés Armstrong

Anju Gill

Bryan Ostlund

Carlos Esteve

Caroline Barbier

CS Rim

David Bruggen

David Smith

David Yarborough

Dejan Dusic

Diego Castagnasso

Dom van de Werken

Dominika Kozarzewska

Elzette Schutte

Eric Gerbrandt

Evgeniy Kuzin

Francisco D’Orey

Francisco Javier Ortiz

Fred Douven

Gabriel Fonzo Cruzat

Gonzalo de Elizalde

Greg Furniss

Harro van Dam

Henk Vaandreger

Irina Koziy

Iryna Kukhtina

Jaime Sanchez

Jason Smith

Joe Vargas

John Shelford

Jon Salters

Juan Andres Ferrari

Juan Jose Flores

Juan Pablo Hube

Kasey Cronquist

Kelvin Ong

Ken Patterson

Kujtim Lepaja

Leandro Benites

Liz Te Amo

Luca Molari

Luis Carlos Afanador

Mamen Mingorance

Mano Babiolakis

Mariusz Podymniak

Markus Duran

Martin Wong

Mateusz Pilch

Michael Brinkmann

Nabil Belmkaddem

Patricio Munoz

Paul Macrie

Peter McPherson

Pieter Zeitsman

Purnima Khandelwal

Rachel McKenzie

Radu Niculescu

Rafael Dominguez Guillon

Raimundo Ortuzar

Roberto Castañeda

Roger Horak

Rupert Hargreaves

Shako Tsintsadze

Stanisław Pluta

Stefan Viljoen

Steve Taylor

Todd Sanders

Tom Bodtke

Turgut Aysan

Vicente Jimenez

Another Bumpy Year for the World Beyond Blueberries

It’s difficult to provide an overview of any industry without taking into account the macroeconomic and geopolitical context of recent years. On top of the ongoing (though ebbing) pandemic, we have the added complexity of a year of geopolitical upheaval emanating from two major epicenters of the world - one in Eastern Europe and the other in China - since the last publication. Supply chains, logistics, and markets have been disrupted across the global economy. Those macro factors have had a profound impact on both supply creation and developments in the markets themselves. Put simply, aggregate demand for blueberries has grown throughout the COVID pandemic in most markets but supply creation, while still continuing, has experienced plenty of headwinds.

Tying The Trends to the Data: Industry Growth, Professionalization, and Maturation Continues

For those using this document as a tool for decision making, the development of informed strategies, and various other purposes, please periodically review the Industry Trends section in this report in addition to the data. While the blueberry industry continues to rapidly grow and change, the trends have held surprisingly consistent over the past years. A short peek at the previous reports of recent years will reveal a high level of overlap in the trends. Importantly, these trends also indicate the drivers that the report team, and the many industry contributors to this report, believe will most influence future developments on a macro level.

Reflecting on Supply & The Market Trends

Fresh Market Dynamics: While volumes continue to increase (dominated by China for internal consumption and a short list of exporting countries), fresh blueberry supply has been disrupted in many weeks of the last year, highly impacted by maritime shipping challenges and crop loss in some regions. As a result, particularly in the US, year-on-year category unit volume has been down in some weeks. With that said, category demand growth, average unit values, category value, and retailer buyer behavior, have been aggressive in North America and Europe. On the China side of the equation, the story is more messy to say the least. China’s critically important role in global supply chains for so many products has been felt throughout the global economy as the disruption of COVID and then Zero COVID policy and ‘Wolf Warrior Diplomacy’ has come to bear on the system. Meanwhile this critical market for so many products proved incredibly difficult to serve. China’s internal market continues to grow for blueberries but exporters have struggled to manage port disruptions, logistical issues, and a litany of other challenges leading them to divert fruit elsewhere. Meanwhile, greater Europe and the UK are proving to be a consistent and expanding source of consumption growth for the blueberries category.

Expanding our Base: Excitingly, there is strong evidence that blueberries now have an increasingly diverse consumer base. During the last major economic downturn in 2008-2012, a large portion of blueberry category growth was driven by existing consumers buying more. In recent years we have seen consumers from a broader swath of income brackets who buy blueberries a couple of times a year, and that trend has strengthened in the last 12 months. Additionally, many new markets for blueberries continue to develop. Also importantly, the growth in movement and category value of processed frozen blueberries at retail has been nothing short of exceptional in recent years, well after the panic buying of the pandemic subsided.

Processed Market Commentary: One of the perennial challenges on the processed side of the blueberry industry is the consistent disconnect between the data available on the crop and market behavior. While the opacity of inventories remains a challenge (the Public Cold Storage report in the US does not indicate grade, whether product is sold or unsold, and does not reflect private inventories for example), there are also other issues at play. The current market behavior at the writing of this commentary (end of August 2022) illustrates the point - the processed crop is lighter this year in North America (still the source of the vast majority of frozen product) yet rumors of quotes below previous assumed market prices from South America are already resulting in assumptions about crop and pricing that don’t align with the data. South America’s processed crop is less than half the size of North America’s and tends to offer a lower grade (IE a separate category), especially from Peru as the frozen product from that country is almost entirely byproduct that cannot ship fresh. Additionally a large portion of the South American crop is exported to Asia and markets other than North America.

Although there is some consolidation underway, the fragmentation among processed packers and sellers in the highbush crop also contributes to the dynamic. The processed market is not only a critical stabilizing force for the fresh side of the pricing equation, it is also a diverse category with the higher grades produced and packed by companies often solely focused on growing, harvesting, and processing high grade blueberries (based on size, brix, color, and increasingly variety). The reality that quotes for grade outs from the southern hemisphere that may or may not materialize in the coming months could have such an impact on the market says a great deal about the opportunity for the processed industry to increase efforts to organize and work off of accurate data on crop, inventories, and grade to say the least.

Where is the Growth Coming From?: Yield Increases vs. New Plantings

Since the arrival of the ‘health Halo’ thanks to research empowered by the NABC and USHBC Research Committee, blueberries have grown from a tiny regional crop with a handful of limited markets in the 1990’s to one of the leading produce items by value in the world today. Over this 25+ year period, the global crop and global consumption has grown considerably. By far the primary driver for that growth historically has been one single factor - new plantings of blueberries coming into production.

This is starting to change with a greater share of growth coming from yield, and new analysis from the Agronometrics team lays out the dynamic well. This development also helps explain why global volumes have increased faster than previously anticipated.

The Yield Paradigm Shift: We estimate that one third (⅓) of the recent volume growth can be attributed to increases in yields rather than from new plantings alone. This development is driven by accelerated adoption of improved growing systems and new genetics; particularly in the fast growing low and no chill regions as well as some mid and high chill regions.

The Yield Paradigm Shift is not coming, it has arrived.

If we project this trend forward, it is reasonable to assume that the average yield of a competitive farm in the coming years will be markedly higher than the past averages.

This development, when coupled with the increasing demand for quality and challenges of controlling both fixed and variable costs at the farm provide plenty of food for thought.

Advice to Growers Looking to the Horizon

The IBO is a grower organization that serves the world’s growers. While we don’t have a crystal ball and predicting the future is a fool’s errand, we can certainly assert trends that are likely to influence the next year and beyond. Three trends standout for growers to consider.

Firstly, supply creation is likely to continue aggressively in the coming 2-3 years in many geographies in the form of both new plantings and in a growing number of cases, variety replacement, better quality plant material, and farm upgrades resulting in higher yields.

Secondly, as the supply of improved quality blueberry fruit has increased in recent years, the bar has risen on the market side. Retail buyers are increasingly selective and focused on year-round sourcing of better, more consistent berries on the fresh side. On the processed side, the standards, while less intense, are also increasing.

The third and last trend worth emphasizing is the challenge on the horizon in our biggest variable cost - harvest. Considering the relative labor scarcity built into the demographics in most countries around the world and the (hopefully) continued development of the world economy (economic development creates more blueberry consumers), our industry’s reliance on hand labor for harvest will continue to face pressure in cost and availability. Increasing the harvest efficiencies of the labor we have now through field practices, genetics, technology, and other tools is critical, as are the longer term innovation solutions that may bring a sea change in mechanization of the fresh harvest while preserving quality.

While there are more trends to consider, this Editor recommends growers prioritize keeping an eye on these three aforementioned trends as they apply to their businesses. The first (accelerated supply creation) will have an impact on the competitive environment in years to come, both from an operating perspective (for example as companies compete for resources) as well as the new options and competition this will create on the market side. The bar for competitive yields will, without a doubt, rise. On the second (increased pressure for quality) we must ask what the future cost of entry to play will entail and how we as an industry get ahead rather than play catch up on quality. This is easier said than done. On the third (harvest cost) we have diverse scenarios in different growing regions but the trend is the trend. The solutions may vary, but creative and multi-faceted solutions are needed if we are to maintain and grow the offering. Reflecting increasing harvest costs in pricing is part of the equation but it cannot be the only solution. In all cases these three trends challenge growers to focus on the decisions they can make that affect the outcomes of yield, harvest cost, and increased quality. Putting those three filters first will serve our decision making as growers and as an industry as we navigate the coming years.

Editor Thanks to the Team

The 2022 Global State of the blueberry Industry Report is intended to serve the industry with consistent information and intelligence to empower informed decision making; and a healthier more connected industry. This year we offer some updates to the new approach to this product that began last year. The report is and will be in future, produced and led by an expanded professional team. Special thanks to Colin, Matt, Claudio, Violeta, and Sarah for their tenacious and tireless work to both collect and synthesize the data as well capture the trends and tell the story. You have done a great service to the industry and I hope to see you all in the next round.

-Cort Brazelton,
IBO Global State of the Blueberry Industry Report Editor