World Fruit News: How the EU is impacting packaging & the Red Sea is impacting Egyptian citrus

The EU is taking a new approach on the saying ‘reduce, reuse, recycle’ and it is receiving push back from the fruit and vegetable industry.

The European Parliament and Council’s Packaging and Packing Waste Regulation is an effort to increase food safety and boost the circular economy while making packaging safer and more sustainable. The measure requires it to be recyclable and bans plastic.

Industry leaders say the rules will do enormous damage and unfairly single out the fruit and vegetable industry. They also argue it will increase food waste, restrict consumer access to healthy food and have little impact to recycling.

The Red Sea crisis continues on, but it is leading Egyptian citrus exporters to new markets.

Their primary market is Asia, but the ongoing attacks in the Red Sea are making that challenging. Brazil and Canada are now importing more Egyptian citrus and the export manager of Fruit.Farm says thankfully they have had a good quality crop this year with sizes and volumes significantly better compared to last year’s. That’s due to milder weather conditions. Egypt also offers competitive prices compared to Spain, Turkey and Morocco.