Kiwifruit prices at the start of the season

From the 2011/12 to the 2025/26 season, the packing-station price of Hayward kiwifruit in Greece, Italy, France and Portugal was higher in March and April than in the first weeks of the season in 29 of 49 seasons with complete data, counting each country separately, lower in 12 and unchanged in 8, with a median rise of only 1.0%, according to a Wikifarmer analysis of the weekly prices that member states report to the European Commission. The question matters now because the first prices of each season are usually reported between late October and late November, and in the data available on 4 November, covering weeks up to 19 October for Greece and Italy and up to 26 October for France and Portugal, none of the four countries had reported a price for the 2026/27 season.

The first prices of the season are reported from late October to late November

In the northern hemisphere the kiwifruit marketing season begins with the harvest, once the fruit reaches the minimum maturity criteria the EU sets for harvest, and the first packing-station price appears in the Commission's data in a different week in each country (European Commission, Agri-food Data Portal). Greece usually reports its first price around 22 October, Italy around 3 November, Portugal around 15 November and France around 25 November, based on the median date of the first week with a price. In the 2025/26 season the first prices were for the weeks starting on 20 October in Greece, 3 November in Italy, 17 November in Portugal and 24 November in France.

The spring price was higher in 29 of 49 seasons across the four countries

The comparison is between the average of the first four weeks with a price and the average of the weeks of March and April in the same season. In Italy the spring price was higher in 8 of 14 seasons and lower in 6, with a median rise of 1.5%, in France it was higher in 8 of 12 and lower in 4, also with a median rise of 1.5%, and in Greece it was higher in 7 of the 9 seasons with complete data, with a median rise of 1.9%. In Portugal the price was unchanged in 7 of 14 seasons, because the country often reports the same price for many consecutive weeks.

The largest falls from the start of the season to spring were 41.3% in Greece in 2015/16 and 20.8% in Italy in 2023/24, while the largest rise, 120.4%, was recorded in Italy in 2018/19, when the prices the country reported in the first weeks were unusually low, followed by rises of 25.3% in Portugal in 2012/13 and 23.5% in Greece in the same season. In the latest season the four countries moved in different directions, as the spring price was 18.4% higher in Greece, 2.3% higher in Portugal and 1.0% higher in France, while in Italy it was 13.8% lower.

In 2025/26 the price was 68% to 130% above 2014/15

The average packing-station price in the 2025/26 season was 3.54 euros per kilogram in France, 2.27 in Portugal, 2.24 in Italy and 1.78 in Greece, against 1.54, 1.35, 1.25 and 0.91 euros in 2014/15, the first season with enough weeks of prices in all four countries. In current prices the rise comes to 130.0% in France, 68.4% in Portugal, 79.7% in Italy and 95.1% in Greece. Each country reports its own representative price, so differences in level between countries may also reflect differences in size, quality and packaging, and comparisons within the same country are safer. An earlier Wikifarmer study found that Italian kiwifruit sold at a premium over Greek fruit at wholesale in 2024 and 2025. Greek exports have grown as well, since Greece exported 225,988 tonnes of kiwifruit in 2025, more than five times the 2005 volume.

Average packing-station price of Hayward kiwifruit in euros per kilogram in the 2014/15 and 2025/26 seasons in France, Portugal, Italy and Greece

Source: Wikifarmer analysis of the weekly packing-station prices that member states report to the European Commission.

At the Athens Central Market the new season started at 1.87 euros per kilogram

At the Athens Central Market, where the market operator OKAA publishes the prevailing wholesale price in each bulletin, the kiwifruit price from 15 October to 4 November 2026 averaged 1.87 euros per kilogram in the six bulletins of the period that quote a kiwifruit price, the last on 3 November, against 1.63 euros in the same period of 2025, 14.3% higher, and 1.30 euros in 2023 (OKAA). At Athens wholesale level the price rose through the northern hemisphere winter in most recent seasons, since in the five seasons from 2021/22 to 2025/26 the average April price was higher than the average November price in four, with the largest rise, 24.4%, in 2022/23, while in 2021/22 it was 1.6% lower. In 2025/26 the price rose from 1.68 euros in November to 2.00 euros in April.

The price at the start of the season matters to sellers and buyers of kiwifruit

At the start of the season growers and packers decide how much fruit to sell straight away and how much to store, while buyers in Europe negotiate the first deals. The Commission's historical data show that the packing-station price in spring was usually slightly higher than at the start of the season, with large exceptions in both directions, while at Athens wholesale level the rise from November to April was more frequent and larger. The price also depends on fruit size and quality, in line with the quality and export standards for kiwifruit.

The figures describe what prices did in earlier seasons and are not a forecast. The first packing-station prices of the 2026/27 season are expected in the Commission's data in the coming weeks, first from Greece and Italy.

The analysis uses the weekly packing-station prices of Hayward kiwifruit ("all types and varieties", national average) that Greece, Italy, France and Portugal report to the European Commission, in euros per 100 kilograms, and the prevailing wholesale price of kiwifruit in the OKAA bulletins, used with OKAA's permission. The season runs from September to August. A season is included in the comparison, for each country separately, when its first price was reported by the end of December and there are at least four weeks at the start and four in March and April. The Greek series has no prices in the 2021/22 to 2023/24 seasons, has few weeks in 2018/19 and 2020/21 and starts in January 2025 in the 2024/25 season, while the Portuguese series often repeats the same price for several weeks. Portugal's 2021/22 season was excluded because the price for the week of 22 November 2021 is 1.51 euros per 100 kilograms between prices of 153 and 151, an obvious entry error, while Italy's very low first prices in 2018/19 were kept because the country reported them in the same way in its monthly prices. Prices are in current euros, not adjusted for inflation, and are not the prices growers receive in each country. For Athens wholesale there are data from November 2020, with gaps, and the comparison for 15 October to 4 November rests on six bulletins in 2025 and 2026 and four in 2023. All figures were recomputed independently from the original files.