What was it all about?

The US is the world’s largest mango importer, taking about 350,000 tonnes a year. After 15 years of negotiation, the Australian industry gained access to the mainland US in January 2015, starting with a four-year pilot program.

The aim of this project, which ran from 2015 to 2016, was to monitor two consignments of Australian mangoes to the USA, monitoring supply chain impacts on quality. The team quickly addressed any problems they encountered by working closely with growers, treatment facilities, freight forwarders, exporters and importers, which enabled improvements.

The two consignments monitored by this project covered 13 commercial shipments over the 15/16 season and totalled about 75 tonnes. There were no compliance issues reported on arrival in the US.

The team found that while there were some quality issues with overheated, overripe, old, out of grade and lenticel spotted fruit, these were the exception — around 99 per cent of the Australian mangoes at retail had a very attractive appearance with high flavour and were very popular with US retailers and consumers.

A number of recommendations resulted from the activity, including improved cool chain and ripening management, investigation of Keitt lenticel spotting, and improved compliance in Brisbane.

More grower awareness of mango seed weevil compliance in the adoption of the new net pallet packaging option, widening the US distribution, lengthening the supply season, and consideration of branding and promotion in the US were further recommendations.