Artichoke is one of the few Egyptian products sold in two entirely different businesses. Fresh heads are a short-window, handling-sensitive vegetable with a specific buyer list. IQF hearts and quarters are a year-round industrial ingredient bought on yield and specification. Mid-size buyers frequently ask for artichoke without saying which one they mean, and the two have almost nothing in common beyond the plant.
Fresh heads
The Egyptian fresh window runs from late November to April, with reliable volume from December through March. The dominant material is the local green globe type, round to slightly conical, sold by head diameter rather than by count.
| Size | Head diameter | Usual outlet |
|---|---|---|
| Large | Above 10 cm | Foodservice, wholesale markets |
| Medium | 8 to 10 cm | Retail loose, catering |
| Small and baby | 4 to 7 cm | Retail nets, processing |
Packing is usually a 5 kg or 8 kg open-top carton, single layer for large heads, or a net of three to five small heads. Stem length needs to be stated on the order because it changes both the carton count and what your customer sees: 5 to 10 cm is the common export cut, and a long-stem presentation is a different product.
Fresh artichoke wants 0 to 1 degree Celsius with very high humidity. It transpires quickly, the bracts open and dull within days at ambient, and a head that has lost turgor does not recover in the cold room. Shelf life is roughly two to three weeks from harvest under a clean chain, which in practice means sea freight works for the Mediterranean, the Gulf and the near EU, and anything longer needs a serious conversation about routing.
IQF hearts and quarters
The frozen line is where most small-quantity demand actually sits. Hearts are trimmed whole, quarters and eighths are cut from trimmed hearts, and bottoms are the base alone. Grading is by count per kilogram or by diameter band. Standard packing is 1 kg or 2.5 kg polybags in a 10 kg master carton, or 10 kg bulk bags for industrial users. Specification lines that matter are the trim standard, the percentage of broken pieces, the colour after blanching and the drained weight.
Because it is frozen, an IQF artichoke line can sit in a mixed load without any of the compatibility problems fresh produce brings. It travels at minus 18 degrees Celsius alongside other frozen lines, and a half pallet or a single pallet is a perfectly normal order. The way those loads are built is set out in Egyptian IQF products in part-loads, and a mixed frozen container is covered in building a mixed IQF container from Egypt.
Choosing between them
If your customer is a restaurant group, a deli or a produce wholesaler who sells on appearance, the fresh head is the product and the November to April window is the constraint. If your customer is a food manufacturer, a caterer, a pizza or antipasti producer, or a retailer buying a frozen vegetable range, IQF is cheaper to handle, carries no shrink risk and can be ordered any month of the year. A number of buyers run both: fresh through the season for the premium account, frozen underneath it as the year-round baseline.
Ordering in small quantities
Fresh artichoke can be added to a winter part-load alongside citrus, strawberry or greenhouse vegetables where the set points allow. IQF goes in with any frozen line. Both are GLOBALG.A.P. and BRC covered on request, and documentation can be confirmed before you commit.
Tell us which format you need, the size or grade, the quantity in pallets or cartons and your delivery week, and Peivana will come back with a specification and a price. WhatsApp +20 10 9911 1918 reaches the desk, and same-day quotes are the norm on a defined request.