Brusco Market Risk Briefing — September 2026

What’s happening

• Extreme heat has brought exceptionally early wine-grape harvests across Italy and France, with frost and hail also reducing yields in some vineyards.
• Counterfeiting risk persists in finished product — an Essex case recently involved around £500,000 of fake wine bottles.

Risk considerations: raw-material and vintage-quality variability, elevated alcohol potential, counterfeiting and origin misrepresentation.

What’s happening

• Lower EU pesticide residue limits are tightening requirements on Vietnamese fruit, vegetables, tea, coffee, rice and pepper, with several lines already under enhanced EU checks.
• Rice, pasta and noodles again ranked among the most-flagged categories in August safety data.

Risk considerations: pesticide-residue compliance, rejection exposure, origin and authenticity.

What’s happening

• No pulse-specific developments this month. Pulses remain indirectly exposed to the same El Niño and weather pressures affecting cereals and oilseeds more broadly.

Risk considerations: indirect grain/oilseed market volatility (watch item), residue compliance, sourcing availability.

What’s happening

• No chestnut-specific developments this month, though European heat and drought make yield, sizing and quality worth watching as the autumn harvest approaches.

Risk considerations: climate/heat exposure (watch item), harvest-timing and quality.

What’s happening

• No coconut-specific developments this month, though a strengthening El Niño is already linked to drought and yield pressure on Southeast Asian tree crops.

Risk considerations: El Niño/climate exposure (watch item), origin concentration, freight cost.

What’s happening

• Early European grape harvests affect vine-fruit timing, while El Niño-linked disruption to Peru's mango flowering could cut yields by up to 60% in worst-hit areas — a watch item for dried-mango supply and price.
• Mycotoxin risk remains an ongoing priority given reliance on Turkish and Iranian origins.

Risk considerations: supply and timing, mycotoxin risk (ongoing watch item), residue compliance.

What’s happening

• UK egg supply remains firm, but hot weather has driven an early seasonal rise in Salmonella. UKHSA is investigating clusters potentially linked to imported eggs, with no link to UK-produced eggs identified.

Risk considerations: food safety (Salmonella), origin verification, traceability, welfare-claim clarity.

What’s happening

• No freeze-dried-specific developments this month, though EU pesticide rejections on Egyptian IQF strawberries and heat-shortened harvest windows are worth monitoring for fruit inputs.

Risk considerations: raw-material availability and residue compliance (indirect), quality variability.

What’s happening

• Indian turmeric prices remain elevated, with El Niño adding uncertainty to the newly planted crop — constrained supply typically raises adulteration risk.
• A Hyderabad task force seized over 27 tonnes of adulterated ginger-garlic paste; herbs & spices again ranked among the most-flagged categories in August safety data.

Risk considerations: adulteration, undeclared dyes/fillers, supplier verification.

What’s happening

• UK heat and drought have sharply cut brassica yields (some growers reporting around half planned levels), tightened lettuce supply, and increased potato quality issues (smaller tubers, skin defects).
• Together these raise availability and sizing risk across frozen vegetable inputs, with greater reliance on imports to fill gaps.

Risk considerations: reduced availability, smaller/variable sizing, import dependence and origin verification.

What’s happening

• No developments this month — Smart Salt® supply and specification remain stable.

Risk considerations: none flagged this month (stable).

What’s happening

• An Italian inspection campaign found multiple olive-oil operators non-compliant, including lampante oil sold as extra virgin and product lacking adequate origin records.
• US research found most tested "avocado oil" products weren't authentic, while EU heat has also cut sunflower yields by around 6–7%.

Risk considerations: origin misrepresentation, undeclared blending/dilution, authenticity testing.

What’s happening

• Hot, dry weather has brought Spanish and UK onion harvests forward, pointing to smaller bulb sizes and lower marketable yields, which may increase later-season import reliance.

Risk considerations: smaller bulb sizes, reduced availability, later-season import reliance.

What’s happening

• Spain is pursuing an EU safeguard against a sharp rise in cheap Chinese and Egyptian garlic imports.
• Poor harvest weather in China has cut the proportion of premium-grade bulbs, raising the risk of lower-grade garlic being supplied as premium.

Risk considerations: origin substitution, grade misrepresentation, sourcing and margin pressure.

What’s happening

• A crop-disease advisory follows significant Indian ginger losses over the past two seasons, raising the importance of pesticide-residue monitoring.
• A Hyderabad crackdown also seized over 27 tonnes of adulterated ginger-garlic paste, as tightening supply raises adulteration risk.

Risk considerations: crop-disease/supply risk, residue compliance, adulteration.

What’s happening

• This category inherits risk from its inputs — tomato uncertainty, garlic/ginger fraud, elevated spice prices and olive-oil authenticity issues — with the Hyderabad paste seizure a direct example.

Risk considerations: input authenticity and substitution, supply-cost pass-through, supplier verification.

What’s happening

• Southern-European heatwaves have cut global processing-tomato production forecasts to below 40 million tonnes.
• Existing stocks may limit immediate price rises, but reduced yields and quality raise origin-mislabelling risk further down the chain.

Risk considerations: reduced yields and processing quality, price/supply irregularity, origin mislabelling.