The volume of Moroccan exports of frozen raspberries to the European market doubled in 2022 to reach the 16,700-ton mark. This progression allows Morocco to settle on the podium of exporters of this fruit, behind Serbia and Poland.

Moroccan frozen raspberries never cease to seduce the taste buds of European consumers. According to figures published by the specialized site East-fruit.com, the volume of exports of small red fruits from Morocco to the European market doubled in 2022, to peaking at 16,700 tonnes, far from the 3,600 tonnes recorded in 2020.

Thus, in two years, Morocco will have multiplied by 4.6 the volume of its exports of this fruit to the EU. However, their value only increased 2.7 times (to $60 million), due to the price drop in the international frozen raspberry market. An improvement that allows Morocco to catch up with Ukraine, the third largest exporter of the European market, is currently plunged into continuing instability.

It should be noted that Moroccan exports of fresh raspberries and blackberries to the EU have also taken an upward trend, reaching a volume of 56,200 tonnes in 2022, after having already increased by 36% in 2021.

According to Andriy Yarmak, an economist at the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) Investment Center, quoted by the portal, “Morocco is a unique example of a development model for export of berries (…). Initially, taking advantage of the climate, he focused on exports of high-value-added products. Nevertheless, with the expansion of the production of fresh raspberries and other berries for export, mainly to EU countries, an opportunity has arisen for the development of freezing berries. Now both segments are developing dynamically and complementing each other.”

Increase in cultivated areas

Alongside the increase in volumes exported to Europe, the Kingdom has expanded its customer portfolio by integrating, for the first time, new destinations such as the United Arab Emirates, Brazil, South Africa, Croatia, Canada, Qatar, Bahrain, and Saudi Arabia. Until then, 90% of Moroccan exports of frozen raspberries were destined for European countries, including England, Germany, France and Spain.

If our small red fruits are a hit on the international market, it is thanks to the large quantities produced during previous campaigns. Indeed, 37,000 tonnes of raspberries were produced during the 2020-2021 campaign, a period during which the cultivated area quadrupled, from 2,680 to 9,650 hectares.

At the end of April 2022, Amine Bennani, president of the Moroccan Association of Red Fruit Producers, revealed, in a statement for Le360, that 103,751 tonnes of fresh and processed red fruits had been exported until March 31, 2022, under the 2021-2022 campaign (including 76,476 fresh and 27,279 processed), compared to a total of 86,743 tonnes in 2020-2021.

Revenues on the rise

Obviously, Moroccan producers are very proud of the good health of their exports. According to East-fruit.com , they pocket more than 360 million dollars a year through export. “Fresh raspberry exports bring more money to Morocco than the export of any other fruit. By way of comparison, Ukraine does not export fresh raspberries, focusing exclusively on the low-margin segment of frozen berries,” the specialist site specifies.

And given the rate of growth of raspberry volumes on the European market, it is very likely that Morocco will soon be part of the top 2, currently occupied by Serbia and Poland. In short, the future looks rosy for small red fruits.