Global Plantain Imports Reduce but European and American Purchases Ramp Up

IndexBox has just published a new report: ‘World – Plantains – Market Analysis, Forecast, Size, Trends and Insights’. Here is a summary of the report’s key findings.

Global plantain imports continue a two-year downward trend, decreasing by -15.1% y-o-y to 958K tonnes in 2020. While El Salvador, the second-largest importer worldwide, reduces the purchases from abroad, American and European imports steadily grow. In physical terms, supplies to the U.S. jumped by +7.6% y-o-y to 406K tonnes. European imports increased by +1.2% y-o-y, reaching 274K tonnes last year. In 2020, the average plantain import price rose slightly by +1.8% y-o-y.

Global Plantain Imports by Country

For the third consecutive year, the global market recorded decline in overseas purchases of plantains, which decreased by -15.1% y-o-y to 958K tonnes in 2020. In value terms, plantain imports declined to $628M (IndexBox estimates) in 2020.

In value terms, the U.S. ($250M) constitutes the largest market for imported plantains worldwide, comprising 40% of global imports. The second position in the ranking was occupied by the Netherlands ($52M), with an 8.3% share of global imports. It was followed by Spain, with a 6.2% share.

The U.S. was the major importing country with an import of about 406K tonnes, which resulted at 42% of total imports. El Salvador (76K tonnes) ranks second in terms of the total imports with a 7.9% share, followed by the UK (5.8%), Spain (5.3%), the Netherlands (5.1%) and Romania (4.5%). The following importers – Italy (39K tonnes), France (35K tonnes), North Macedonia (30K tonnes), Belgium (29K tonnes), Hungary (27K tonnes), Canada (26K tonnes) and Senegal (20K tonnes) – together made up 21% of total imports.

In physical terms, imports into the U.S. increased by +7.6% y-o-y in 2020. At the same time, Belgium (+76.9%), Spain (+68.8%), Italy (+47.6%), France (+30.6%), North Macedonia (+20.2%), Canada (+14.4%) and the UK (+7.3%) displayed positive paces of growth. Belgium emerged as the fastest-growing importer in 2020. By contrast, El Salvador (-1.4%), Romania (-8.0%), the Netherlands (-9.2%), Hungary (-10.9%) and Senegal (-44.0%) illustrated a downward trend over the same period.

European plantain imports grew by +1.2% y-o-y to 274K tonnes in 2020. In value terms, imports in the EU rose by +1.4% y-o-y, reaching $224M in 2020.

In 2020, the average plantain import price amounted to $655 per tonne, picking up by +1.8% against the previous year. Prices varied noticeably by the country of destination; the country with the highest price was the Netherlands, while El Salvador was amongst the lowest.

Source: IndexBox Platform