“Harvested when fully ripe” – Grapes from India are a sensitive product

North America as well as Central and Eastern Europe are enduring a tough winter with a lot of snow. But, further south in the Northern Hemisphere, the grape harvest in India is reaching peak season. Grapes are especially flourishing in the hot, tropical state of Maharashtra, one of the country’s leading wine-growing regions. In fact, roughly 70 percent of the 1,000,000 metric tons of grapes annually harvested in India come from this western region.

“Grapes should be harvested at optimal maturity, as they don’t continue to ripen once you’ve harvested them,” explains Hapag-Lloyd expert Anthony Le Flem. An extreme amount of effort goes into carefully transporting the grapes – first from the growing regions to the coast, and then via ship to target markets across the world. The fruit will only stay fresh if it is stored at a temperature of one degree Celsius.

With its expertise in reefer containers, Hapag-Lloyd has become one of the leading transporters of temperature-sensitive grapes exported from India. “At just 12 to 14 weeks, the harvesting season is very short and intense, which requires good coordination among all participants,” Le Flem says in explaining another challenge of this business. Plus, customers expect the highest quality and reliability when it comes to transporting their goods. “They cannot afford hiccups in their supply chain.”

The lion’s share of Indian grapes – or around 85 percent of the harvest – is eaten fresh. However, due to a lack of suitable cold rooms for storage, the grapes are also increasingly being converted into wine or fruit juice. “A small portion of the harvest will also be dried and sold as raisins,” Le Flem adds.

The most important foreign sales market for Indian grapes is Northern Europe, which imports roughly 250,000 metric tons of them each year. Hapag-Lloyd’s most important port of destination in this business is Rotterdam, in the Netherlands, but it also delivers to the UK, Germany and Saudi Arabia. “We expect to consolidate our presence in that segment and potentially increase our market share during this coming season,” Le Flem says to underline the attractiveness of this challenging business segment involving refrigerated containers.