South Africa to India
South African produce, delivered in India’s off season.
We build export programmes out of South Africa into India and the wider Asian and Gulf markets, arriving when local supply has finished and the fruit is worth the most. Citrus is where we lead — soft citrus above all — and the same route carries table grapes and the rest of the deciduous and subtropical season.
The industry behind us
South Africa is a fruit-export country.
Citrus makes up over half of South Africa’s fruit exports, and the figures above are the citrus half of a much larger industry that also ships table grapes, apples and pears, avocados and subtropicals off the same infrastructure. It is large, established and export-oriented — which means the constraint on a programme into India has never been supply. It has been the route, the protocol and the discipline to hold a window.
August 2026
What changed, and why it matters.
After nearly a decade of negotiation, India approved revised export conditions for South African citrus, adding cold treatment options for fruit fly control. In practice that gives exporters real flexibility in how and when fruit moves, which the previous conditions did not allow.
Access is no longer the constraint. Duty is — and that is precisely why this programme is built on citrus rather than deciduous fruit.
| Product | Indian tariff |
|---|---|
| Citrus | approx. 25–30% |
| Apples | 50% |
Most-favoured-nation rates. South African exporters do not hold the preferential terms some competitors enjoy, so the duty is priced in from the start.
The lesson of 2025
Timing beats quality.
South African exporters doubled their volume into India in 2025 — oranges from 778 to 1,600 containers, mandarins from 1,000 to 2,000 — and lost money doing it. Fruit that had been intended for Europe was redirected late, arriving roughly two months behind schedule, straight into the Nagpur and Kinnow domestic harvest and the monsoon.
Fruit sold for materially less than it had cost to land, against Egyptian oranges on the same market working from a cost base South Africa cannot reach.
Quality matters, but market alignment decides profit. The premium mandarins were excellent that season. It made no difference against an inventory glut.
We treat that as the design brief. A programme into India is a question of when and how much, agreed before the season starts — not a home for fruit that failed to sell somewhere else.
What we do
From the orchard to the port of discharge.
Source
Soft citrus and other citrus varieties from South African growers, on season-long programmes rather than spot purchases.
Certify
Cold treatment, phytosanitary certification and export documentation to the Indian protocol, with orchard and packhouse codes recorded per consignment.
Ship
Consolidation and shipping on agreed Incoterms, with the cold chain held from packhouse to discharge.
Carry the risk
We take the market risk our buyers do not want, and hold the grower relationships our buyers cannot reach.
Looking for South African produce this season?
Tell us your variety, volume and port, and we will come back with a programme.
Get in touch