Prices of seasonal fruits spike as fast as city’s temperature

CHENNAI: With summer heat increasing, demand for fruits has increased, which has pushed up the prices as well. The Koyambedu wholesale market started to receive seasonal fruits from Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra.

Due to a surge in demand for these fruits, prices increased by around 10%. And, this is expected to rise more when the mercury level rises.

“As many as 150 vehicles of fruits have arrived at the market in the last few weeks. Since the mercury level surged from February unlike the previous years, the demand for fruits also increased recently, which led to a marginal hike. As the temperature level is expected to increase further, prices also would surge based on the demand,” said R Ramesh, a wholesale fruit trader at Koyambedu wholesale market.

From next month, the wholesale market will receive an additional 50 vehicles of mangoes. Almost after two years, traders in the fruit market witnessed a brisk sale due to sunny days from last month.

Vendors predicted that the prices might increase by 20-30% in the coming days.

Even the retailers in the city saw a brisk sale in recent days. The retail vendors were fruits with a margin of Rs 20-30/kg compared to the wholesale rates.

“In the last two years, there were rainy days between March and May, which are the peak summer seasons. This adversely affected sales, and led to tonnes of wastage. However, this year we expect a good sale among customers, which would also push up the price further till the summer ends,” averred Y Thyagarajan, a retailer at Washermenpet.