Guava and fresh fig are the two Egyptian fruits that mid-size buyers ask about most often and commit to least. The reason is straightforward. Neither one supports a full container for a buyer whose weekly turnover is a few hundred cartons, and until recently the only way to get them was to take a full reefer or go without. In a mixed load, both become practical at half-pallet and quarter-pallet quantities.
Where the two seasons sit right now
Fig is the shorter window. Egyptian fresh fig runs from June to September, with the best fruit and the most reliable condition coming out of July and August. By the second half of September the season is closing. Anyone wanting fig this year is looking at the next four to five weeks and no longer.
Guava is the opposite case. Harvest begins in the second half of August, builds through September and October, and holds into November with a lighter tail through December. It is the fruit that carries a mixed autumn load once fig and grape have finished and before citrus opens at the end of October.
Fresh fig: specification and honest expectations
Egyptian export fig is mostly the Sultani type, purple to brown skinned, packed at 40 to 80 g per fruit. Standard packing is a single-layer punnet of 250 g or 500 g, six to ten punnets to a carton, with the fruit sitting in a moulded tray and never stacked. Cartons are shallow and ventilated.
Fig is fragile and the shelf life is short. Carried at 0 to 1 degree Celsius with high humidity, a good lot gives seven to ten days from packing. That is enough for a five to seven day sea transit to the Gulf with a few days of retail life at the far end. It is not enough for a twenty day transit to northern Europe, which is why most European fig from Egypt moves by air. A mid-size buyer ordering fig by sea should be routing it to a GCC or eastern Mediterranean destination and selling it quickly on arrival.
Guava: specification and why it suits part-loads
Guava is the more forgiving of the two. Egyptian export guava is white-fleshed, picked at mature green to breaker stage, and sold in weight bands of 150 to 200 g, 200 to 250 g, and 250 to 300 g. Packing is a 4 kg single-layer open-top carton with foam net sleeves or a pulp tray.
Carried correctly it gives two to three weeks. The word carried is doing work in that sentence. Guava is chilling sensitive and anything below 7 degrees Celsius causes pitting and dull skin that only becomes visible when the container is opened. The working range is 8 to 10 degrees Celsius.
The compatibility problem, stated plainly
Fig wants 0 to 1 degrees. Guava wants 8 to 10 degrees. These two fruits cannot share a reefer. That is the single most important thing to know before ordering both, and it is a common source of disappointment when a buyer assumes any two Egyptian fruits can travel together.
What guava can share a container with is other warm-carry product: mango at 10 to 12 degrees is close enough to work at a compromise set point around 9 to 10 degrees, and so is late-season melon. Fig belongs with the cold group alongside grape, pomegranate and stone fruit, with the further caution that grape is often fumigated with sulphur dioxide pads that fig will not tolerate. The general rules are set out in our note on temperature and ethylene compatibility in a mixed Egyptian reefer.
What you can actually order
On guava, the practical minimum is a half Euro pallet, which is around 70 to 80 cartons of 4 kg, or roughly 300 kg. A quarter pallet is possible during the October peak when packing lines are running guava daily anyway. On fig, the minimum is smaller in weight but harder to schedule, because fig is packed to order and a small quantity has to coincide with a day the packhouse is running the line. Expect a quarter pallet of fig to need three to four days notice rather than same-day confirmation.
Both fruits sit comfortably inside the wider minimum order framework described in our guide to minimum order quantities from Egypt, product by product.
Planning the autumn load
The sensible shape of an autumn mixed container from Egypt, loading late September or October, is guava as the anchor at four to six pallets, with pomegranate, table grape tail volume and early mandarin filling the rest, all at a compromise set point that the exporter should confirm in writing before the order is placed. Fig, if wanted at all, goes in its own earlier cold load or by air.
Both fruits are GLOBALG.A.P certified at grower level and packed in BRC certified facilities, and both travel with a phytosanitary certificate and residue documentation matched to the destination.
For current guava sizing and fig availability, half-pallet pricing and a same-day quote on a mixed autumn container, contact Peivana on WhatsApp at +20 10 9911 1918.