Brazil fruit exports surge but vast potential remains untapped

Brazil’s fresh fruit export sector continues to expand at a rapid rate, but remains some way short of fulfilling its potential on international markets, according to a new report from Comex do Brasil.

According to the website, which cites information from national producer and exporter association Abrafrutas, shipments of fruit (including non-oil nuts) reached US$880.5mn between January and August 2026, up 23.7 per cent from the US$712mn recorded in the same period of last year.

The increase follows another record year in 2025, when Brazil’s fruit exports rose by 19.6 per cent in volume terms and were worth US$1.45bn, 12 per cent more than in 2024.

Despite that progress, however, less than 3 per cent of the country’s annual fruit production – estimated at more than 40mn tonnes – is sold abroad, according to Abrafrutas.

Brazil is among the world’s three largest fruit producers but ranks only 23rd among exporters, according to figures cited by Abrafrutas president Waldyr Promicia.

By contrast, Chile exported US$8.63bn worth of fruit in 2025, almost six times Brazil’s total, despite having a substantially smaller production base.

Areas for improvement

Better logistics, market access, and alignment with international demand have reportedly been identified as important factors on which further growth depends.

Promicia said Brazil already had “productive capacity, quality and markets”, but argued that further progress was needed on competitiveness, phytosanitary controls, and the opening of new markets.

His organisation has also called for greater investment in research, faster registration of crop-protection products, expanded border inspection capacity, and improved financing and crop insurance.

The association has targeted fruit exports of close to US$2bn by 2028, and it may find itself supported in that ambition by the Mercosur-EU trade agreement, which it sees as an opportunity to compete better in Europe thanks to lower tariffs.