The winter citrus marketing campaign in South Africa registered gains by week-23, 2025 and included surplus mandarin shipments to India.
Exporters look forward to repeating the 2024 success when 164.5 million 15-kilogram citrus boxes engaged international markets.
By marketing week 23 [before June 6, 2025], Eastern, Western and Northern Cape had aggregated about 46.5 million 15-kg boxes of citrus. The Citrus Growers’ Association of Southern Africa (CGA) puts supplies of the corresponding week in 2024 lower at 43.9 million cartons.
Early projections expect even 2025 shipments or a slight annual increase of 3.6% despite currently postponed U.S.’ tariff challenges.
The American market is the recipient of at least 4% of citrus from South Africa, the bulk of which from Western Cape.
Regarding popular specialty types, the CGA assesses Valencia oranges to hit a preliminary 52 million 15-kg boxes this season.
Surplus Mandarins in India
Another specialty are Nadorcott mandarins, which by June 13, 2025 were attracting surplus rebuffs in the emerging market of India.
This repeats the 2024 season when SA’s mandarins landed in one fell swoop in India, slashing prices to below 106 Rand ($5.88) a box.
Marketers in India are now calling for SA to regulate the size of shipments to reduce conflict between pricing and volumes.
The South Africa citrus marketing season in 2025 is therefore going down to meeting its 2024 largesse amid various trade challenges. To learn more on the 2025 season’s progress, peruse the statistics, next.
South Africa 2025 Citrus Marketing Statistics
May through October marks the harvest months of South Africa’s citrus. Marketers from Mpumalanga to the Capes start wintertime marketing late May. In 2025, South Africa looks to maintaining its second ranking in citrus exports worldwide, whose value hit $2.43 billion in 2023. After 2023 exports approximated 164.1 million 15-kg cartons and 2024 attained 164.5 million, 2025 shipments could hit near-similar volumes.
Which SA regions led citrus supplies by mid-2025?
By June 6, 2025, Northern regions were leading supplies at 27,365,005 boxes, according to a Citrus Growers’ Association (CGA) statement. Eastern Cape was second best with 10,848,280 boxes while Western and Northern Cape finished the regional tally with 8,294,938 boxes.
Which citrus fruits dominated the mid-2025 supply situation in SA?
According to the CGA, lemons had the biggest supplies among citrus fruits. They totaled 6.27 million 15 kg boxes in Eastern Cape, 9.156 million in the North and 1.62 million in Western Cape. Following suit were grapefruit, soft citrus, navel oranges and Valencia oranges in descending order of volume. This is even as clementines could amount to 5.4 million 15-kg boxes in 2025’s exports.