Strawberry prices plunge across EU markets as blood oranges rise and lemons diverge

Fresh Fruit Market Digest – Week 13, 2026

In Week 13, 2026, strawberry prices fell sharply across major EU wholesale benchmarks as Spanish Huelva production ramps up. Citrus markets showed mixed signals, with Italian blood oranges and Moro varieties pushing higher while Orri mandarins softened in Spain and Germany. In Greece, fruit prices remained broadly stable, with strawberries the only mover. This digest tracks developments across Spain’s Mercamadrid, Greece’s OKAA, Germany’s BLE, and France’s Rungis.

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Spain’s Mercamadrid

Orri decreases as lemons and Sanguina hold firm

Spain's central wholesale marketplace recorded broadly stable to marginally softer citrus prices between weeks 12 and 13, with seven of nine varieties either unchanged or declining by €0.01–€0.10/kg. 

Orri mandarin slipped from €2.40 to €2.30/kg — a 4.2% week-on-week decline — as late-season Orri volume from the Valencia and Murcia regions continues ahead of the variety's end in late March. Orri commands a premium over other citrus lines on the market, reflecting sustained consumer demand.

At the budget end, Salustiana oranges held near the floor price at €0.70/kg, down €0.04 from the prior week, reflecting adequate to ample availability. This variety is facing sustained structural pressure from processing-grade competition from Morocco and Egypt, which has progressively eroded fresh-market margins.

The Primaflori lemon rose from €0.09/kg to €1.50, going against the softening trend. Shipments to northern Europe have been disrupted this month by logistics bottlenecks at some ports, tightening domestic availability in Mercamadrid even as production remains robust.

Sanguina (blood) oranges remain the strongest performer among the orange lines at €1.70/kg, maintaining their position as the premium red-flesh option. The Sanguina season is narrowing, and volume is beginning to trail off. Navel Late, Lane Late, and both grapefruit lines were all unchanged week-on-week — a signal of orderly, well-supplied markets with stable demand fundamentals across these commodities.

The 2026 Mercamadrid strawberry price curve tells a familiar seasonal story. Week 1 opened at €8.00/kg, a premium consistent with constrained early-season supply from the Huelva region, where late autumn rains and cooler-than-average December temperatures had slowed the growth of the first flush. By week 3, prices had already retreated sharply to €5.36/kg as picking volumes accelerated.

The market found a temporary floor between weeks 6 and 10, oscillating between €3.90 and €4.50/kg — a range that reflects the dynamic equilibrium between still-building Huelva output and healthy pre-Easter retail demand. Week 13 registered €3.75/kg, the lowest point in the 2026 series to date, and directional momentum points firmly downward into weeks 14–17 as full-season production continues to scale.

For buyers, the €3.50–3.75/kg range is likely to define the near-term floor unless an adverse event disrupts output. A key variable to watch is export demand from the UK and France, and any softening of cross-border demand as competing Northern European production begins, which could drop prices toward €3.00 as seen in some prior seasons.

Greece’s Central Market of Athens (OKAA)

Stability prevails, strawberry the lone mover

The Central Market of Athens delivered a static price picture between weeks 11 and 12, with nine of the ten tracked varieties holding firm week-on-week. For buyers and sellers operating through the Greek market, this week's data confirms ongoing supply-demand equilibrium across the core fruit basket.

Variety	Week 11 (€/kg)	Week 12 (€/kg)	Change
Avocado	3.00	3.00	=
Kiwi	2.00	2.00	=
Krystallia pears	1.70	1.70	=
Lemons	1.10	1.10	=
Granny Smith apples	1.30	1.30	=
Starking Delicious apples	1.30	1.30	=
Fuji apples	1.60	1.60	=
Late Lane oranges	0.70	0.70	=
Navel oranges	0.60	0.60	=
Strawberries	2.50	2.30	-8.33%

Citrus lines — including lemons, Late Lane oranges, and Navel oranges — all held steady. Greek-marketed Navel oranges at €0.60/kg remain among the most competitively priced in the EU marketplace, reflecting Greece's cost-efficient domestic citrus production in the Argolida and Laconia growing regions.

Late Lane oranges at €0.70/kg also represent strong value relative to the €1.20–€1.30/kg prices observed at Mercamadrid for comparable late-season orange varieties — a differential that reflects logistics costs, market channel differences, and the distinct demand structures of the two markets.

Apple prices — Granny Smith and Starking Delicious at €1.30/kg, Fuji at €1.60/kg — were unchanged and reflect good-quality availability from Greek cold-store holdings. Kiwi at €2.00/kg and Krystallia pears at €1.70/kg were also stable, consistent with a well-managed draw-down of Greek domestic stocks.

The one movement was strawberries, which declined 8.3% from €2.50 to €2.30/kg. The OKAA strawberry price — significantly below the €3.75/kg seen at Mercamadrid in the same period — reflects the different competitive dynamic in the Greek market, where imports of early-season Huelva strawberries compete directly with growing volumes from Greek domestic production, particularly from the Ilia and Achaia regions. The price decline reflects the broader EU-wide trend: as Spanish product becomes more abundant and logistics costs normalize, prices are being bid down across all markets.

Germany's Federal Office for Agriculture & Food (BLE)

Italian Blood Oranges and Moro varieties push higher as Spanish season tightens

Data is released with a one-week lag; this analysis compares week 10 with week 11 data.

Germany's BLE prices offer a differentiated view of EU citrus, spanning Spanish and Italian origins across a wider variety. The week 11 to week 12 comparison reveals a market in which Italian specialty varieties are commanding growing premiums, while Spanish navel and Salustiana lines continue their seasonal compression.

The Moro orange from Italy climbed from €2.07 to €2.18/kg — a gain of 5.3%. It is in the final weeks of its season, and the price rise reflects supply tightening. German retail buyers and specialist importers with premium blood orange programmes should factor in further upside risk as the season closes out.

Similarly, the Italian Taroco blood orange — the highest-priced variety on the citrus board — saw a 6.2% increase. The Taroco's premium positioning reflects its distinctive organoleptic qualities and its increasingly limited seasonal window.

By contrast, Spanish varieties broadly softened or held. Navel orange (Spain) fell from €1.15 to €1.13/kg and Salustiana (Spain) declined from €1.13 to €1.10/kg — continuing the price-pressure narrative seen at Mercamadrid. The Cara cara orange from Spain held flat at €1.60/kg. Spanish Lemon slipped marginally from €1.56 to €1.53/kg, even as Primaflori was rising at Mercamadrid — a divergence worth monitoring as it could reflect differing quality cohorts reaching the two markets.

Spanish strawberries, consistently the highest-volume and most competitively priced origin in the German market, fell from €6.95/kg in week 9 to €5.12/kg by week 12, a retreat of nearly 26% over six weeks, reflecting the acceleration of the Huelva growing season and the progressive improvement in logistical throughput from southern Spain to German distribution centres.

Greek strawberries declined to €4.99/kg by week 12 — the lowest price of any origin — reflecting the early-season premium that Greek domestic and export strawberries commanded in weeks 7–9 before Spanish volumes overwhelmed demand.

Italian strawberries followed a similar path, with week 12 prices at €5.83/kg, somewhat above the Greek and Spanish equivalents but below the Netherlands product.

Dutch strawberries, which only entered the dataset last week, registered the highest price on the board at €8.10/kg. This premium — about €3.00/kg above Spanish origin at the same point — is consistent with the Netherlands' reputation for year-round greenhouse-grown strawberries of consistent quality and extended shelf life, which command a premium from German retail and food-service buyers.

France’s Rungis International Market

Strawberry prices plunge across all origins; Apple and pear markets hold

Data is released with a one-week lag; this analysis compares week 11 with week 12 data.

Rungis International Market saw dramatic weekly price movements in the strawberry category, while the apple and pear categories remained stable.

Variety	Week 10 (€/kg)	Week 11 (€/kg)	Change
Lemon, Spain	1.80	1.80	=
Conference pear, France	2.30	2.30	=
Gala apple, France	1.90	1.90	=
Golden apple, France	1.76	1.72	-2.30%
Granny Smith apple, France	1.80	1.80	=
Reinette Grise du Canada apple, France	2.00	2.00	=
Strawberries, Belgium	16.00	13.60	-16.22%
Strawberries, Spain	7.20	6.26	-13.97%
Strawberries, France	13.60	12.36	-9.55%

Belgian strawberries recorded the largest price decline of any commodity tracked across all four markets in this digest, falling 16.2% in a single week. Belgian greenhouse-grown strawberries command a premium at Rungis, reflecting shorter supply chains, premium variety selection, and consistent year-round availability. Even at €13.60/kg, Belgian strawberries sit far above the Spanish and French equivalents.

Spanish strawberries fell 14.0%, from €7.20 to €6.26/kg, and French strawberries declined 9.6%, from €13.60 to €12.36/kg. All three origin prices are moving in the same direction, suggesting a demand-side shift as the Spanish volume wave arrives.

With the Spanish Huelva season expected to remain in full production through April and early May, and French domestic Gariguette production beginning to emerge in the coming weeks, the competitive pressure on all strawberry origin prices at Rungis is likely to intensify. Belgian strawberries should maintain a relative premium but might face downward pressure as the Spanish and French supply pulls the overall reference price lower.

By contrast, French Conference pears held at €2.30/kg. Gala and Granny Smith apples both held at €1.90/kg and €1.80/kg respectively, and the Reinette Grise du Canada was unmoved at €2.00/kg. The only exception was Golden apple, which slipped €0.04 to €1.72/kg, a modest softening likely reflecting normal quality variation in late-season cold-store stock as the French apple campaign approaches its final weeks.

Spanish lemon held at €1.80/kg, above the €1.53/kg recorded at BLE in the same period — a differential of €0.27/kg, likely due to higher logistics and handling costs in Rungis pricing structures and different quality grades at the French premium market versus the German mass market. For Spanish lemon exporters, the Rungis price floor remains supportive for now, though the BLE softening is a directional indicator worth monitoring.

Market outlook

●       Strawberries are set to continue their seasonal decline as the Huelva volume wave hits full force, with all four EU benchmarks moving downward in unison. Processors and jam buyers have a prime buying window; spot buyers may hold off.

●       Italian blood oranges (Moro, Tarocco) enter their final two weeks — buyers with remaining seasonal demand should act quickly before spot availability becomes erratic.

●       Spanish mandarins (Orri, Nadorcott) are nearing the end of their season; late-picked fruit will require careful quality inspection.

●       Apples and pears remain stable and low risk over the next few weeks, when the first Southern Hemisphere arrivals will reset pricing dynamics.

●       Keep an eye on the Spanish lemon divergence between BLE and Rungis — this unusual split should resolve within a fortnight, providing a signal for the broader market direction.

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