Dive Brief:

• Exports of Chilean fruit will fall 22 percent this year, a drop of 62 million cartons, representing a loss in revenue totaling $823 million, according to Chile's Ministry of Agriculture.
• Worst hit are kiwifruit (60 percent of the crop is lost), almonds (50 percent lost.) The Chilean wine industry will take a hit of some $60 million in sales because of damage to the grape crop. Blueberries, however, did better than had been feared. The government estimates an 8 percent decline in production.
• The official damage estimates follow weeks of conjecture and rumor as fruit buyers in the U.S. and elsewhere have scrambled to obtain reliable data.

Dive Insight:

The news from the agriculture ministry certainly isn't good. It's also not quite the final word. Sometime in the next few days the Chilean Fresh Fruit Exporters Association (ASOEX) is expected to release its damage estimates. Based on what importers have told members of the trade press, some 80 percent of the apricot crop and roughly half of the peach and nectarine crop may also have been lost. We'll know soon.