A devastating freeze in California has obliterated at least half of the citrus crop remaining on trees and opened up opportunities for Spanish senders at a time when their own season was in crisis.

“Although Californian citrus plays a minor part in the UK market requirement, the freeze is having a significant impact on the US and Canadian marketplace and clearly there is an opportunity for Spain and Morocco,” said Duncan MacIntyre, technical director at Muñoz Mehadrin UK. “In fact, Spain and Morocco have already begun sending to North America.”

The arctic freeze blew into California on January 12 and has hit the orange and lemon crops hard as well as strawberries, leafy vegetables and avocados.

Marketeers in the state estimate that the crop was about 50 per cent harvested when the freeze struck and that between 50 and 70 per cent of the remaining fruit is lost. Others estimate fruit losses at a value of some $500 million (£255.6m) California is the US’s main source of fresh citrus accounting for 21 per cent of oranges and 86 per cent of the lemons sold in the country, according to statistics at the California Farm Bureau.

The Navel crop in the state was large in terms of fruit numbers, and some growers are still hoping that some of the fruit, although covered in ice on the trees, may be saved. There has also been extensive tree damage reported this week to the bureau and producers have lost young as well as older trees, some of which have fallen under the sheer weight of ice.

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