Short communication. The influence of size, variety, destination port and month of sale in the export price of Chilean apples: a hedonic approach

Abstract

This study aims at determining the marginal prices of agronomic and marketing variables for Chilean export apples. The agronomic variables are variety and size, and the marketing variables destination port and month of sale. The database corresponds to the 2002-03 and 2003-04 seasons and was obtained directly from the export bulletins of an important Chilean fruit export company. A hedonic price linear function was estimated in terms of the variables mentioned. A generalized linear model was employed and parameters were estimated via the maximum-likelihood method. Results showed that the most influential variable on the final price of apples is destination port, followed by variety, month of sale and size. Using as reference Saudi Arabian ports, Taiwan should be preferred while Rotterdam, other European ports, Philadelphia and other American ports and Latin America are worst choices than Saudi Arabia. With respect to "Red Chief", the reference variety, "Fuji" and "Gala" have positive marginal prices whereas "Granny Smith" showed a null marginal price. Sales in March or April show negative and null marginal prices respectively, suggesting that the best choice is May. The cost of cold storage, however, can offset the advantage of a late sale. Finally the study shows that size has little significance on final price and that 28 additional points in the size index are required to justify the cost of thinning.