Most importers who buy from Egypt for the first time underestimate one thing: how narrow some of the windows are. A category can be at full volume in March and completely gone by May. Planning a year of purchasing from Egypt works best when the calendar comes first and the individual product specifications come second. This is the availability picture our desk works to for the 2026/2027 marketing year.

Autumn, September to November

Pomegranate opens the autumn. Wonderful and 116 start in the second half of September and run into early December, with the cleanest colour and best storage potential coming out of the October picks. Dates overlap with it, running from August into October across Medjool, Siwi and Zaghloul, and dry and semi-dry types hold well enough to ship year round once cured.

Late Keitt mango closes out in September and early October. Citrus begins its ramp in November, first with mandarins and early Navel, and grapefruit follows. November is also when the first significant frozen strawberry contracts for the following spring are usually negotiated, well ahead of the harvest itself.

Winter, December to February

This is the peak of the Egyptian export year. Navel orange runs from December through February at full volume, and Valencia takes over from February through to May or June. Mandarin, lemon and grapefruit sit alongside. Buyers who want fixed weekly volume rather than spot allocation should be contracting during the summer, which is the argument set out in our note on citrus contracting for the 2026/2027 season.

Winter is also the strawberry and vegetable season. Fresh strawberry runs December through April, feeding both the fresh export programme and the IQF lines. Green beans, sugar snaps, broccoli, artichoke and fresh herbs all sit in this window, produced for markets where the northern hemisphere is out of local supply.

Spring, March to May

Potato is the volume story. The main crop harvest runs February through May, with the largest export weeks falling in March and April. Onion follows, with the main harvest from March into June and stored product carrying supply through the summer. Garlic is harvested from March to May and then cured and packed for shipment over the following months.

Spring is also when IQF production is at its heaviest. Strawberry, artichoke and green bean lines run flat out, and cold store stock built now covers the second half of the year.

Summer, June to August

Mango dominates from June to September, moving from early varieties into Kent, then Naomi, then Keitt. Table grape runs from late May into August across Early Sweet, Flame, Superior, Crimson and Autumn Royal. Melon, watermelon, guava and fresh fig fill the same months, and okra and molokhia go into the freezing tunnels for the IQF programme. Dates begin in August, which is covered in more detail in our Egyptian date export guide.

Lead times worth planning around

Availability is only half the picture. Fresh citrus and mango programmes are typically fixed 8 to 12 weeks before the first loading. IQF programmes are contracted 3 to 6 months ahead because production is scheduled against the fresh harvest and cold store space is finite. Spot containers can often be arranged inside 10 to 14 days when stock is on the ground, but pack format and private label work add time.

One further note on transit. Gulf destinations run 5 to 10 days from Egyptian ports, EU Mediterranean ports 6 to 12 days, and North European and South Asian destinations 14 to 25 days. Those figures should be added to the harvest window when you are working backwards from a required arrival date.

Building your 2026/2027 plan

Send us the crops, volumes and destination you are planning for and we will map them against the calendar and confirm what can be committed and when. The export desk is on WhatsApp at +20 10 9911 1918.