It’s strawberry harvest season in Egypt, whose start a fortnight earlier in November has occasioned glut and prompted additional fresh cargo flights.
Some traders have cited that their production in 2025 has increased by 50% year-on-year, pressuring market prices.
The surplus is headed for Europe – and Egypt is turning to extra charter flights and extending traditional carriers to meet high demand there.
According to Iaqaba news, the Hahn airport in Germany is helping transit the pouring in excess.
Although Egypt leads worldwide frozen strawberry shipments that clock above 200,000 tonnes yearly, it resorts to them only after exhausting fresh exports.
Thus the current concern of growers is to ship the fresh portion of their harvest as soon as possible to reduce perishability losses.
Sellers, Charters and Buyers
Producers count on the adrenaline rush of freighters regularly flying out of the country for expeditious dispatch of their produce.
Iaqaba cites that the industry has contracted AirMaster to expand the flights departing Cairo to Hahn.
Each Boeing 737-800BCF aircraft from Cairo en route Hahn is fetching 22,000 kg of the perishable cargo.
Some 60% of fresh strawberries that arrive here end up in Germany’s grocers such as Rewe, while the rest penetrate regional European markets.
Egyptair Cargo is also adding its Airbus 330F fleet to the tally for biweekly flights to Hahn and Ostend (Belgium) airports.
Owing to such booming business from strawberry and other freight, national cargo flights had amassed a market value of $958.2 million in 2024.
Buyers of this fresh cargo include DHL Food Logistics, alongside Belgian Tulpin Group that operate in Germany and Belgium.
The two supply Western Europe’s wholesale stores, a distribution method that promotes stable handling of early season rush hour arrivals.
For now, producers are concentrating on fresh exports before later switching to individually quick-frozen (IQF) shipments when strawberry prices reduce. And as the following stats reveal, frozen berries have more markets for Egypt than those from the fresh harvest.
Egypt Strawberry Statistics
Egypt is Africa’s strawberry production leader and the 5th biggest globally, with harvest volumes totaling over 470,913 tonnes annually. The country manages a harvest equal to 5% of worldwide production, as of 2020. All this is thanks to the introduction of the UF/IFAS cultivars in end 1990s. These varieties helped raise yield rates from 5 to 8 tonnes an acre to over 10-15 tonnes/acre.
The figure below interpreted from the FAOSTAT illustrates a four-year national production history:
| Year | Production [tonnes] | Acreage [Ha] |
| 2023 | 731,145 | 21,033 |
| 2022 | 689,013 | 19,236 |
| 2021 | 663,659 | 17,164 |
| 2020 | 438,730 | 11,850 |
Alternative data by the Ministry of Trade & Industry, General Organization for Export and Import Control (GOEIC) shows registered acreage at 40,000 acres (2022).
Where does Egypt export strawberries?
In 2023, Egypt exported strawberries to 75 nations in frozen form and 55 others in fresh condition. Most of the recipients are in Europe (especially France, Germany, UK and Belgium), while the rest in the Middle East/Africa.
How big are Egypt’s frozen strawberry shipments?
The North African country however leads in frozen strawberry shipments totaling 200,000 tonnes, worth $0.4 billion. This sale represents between 1/2 and 1/3rd of annual production, depending on particular years.