Every year around this time, tiny, juicy passengers board planes from India to join Jersey City’s Indian community and offer a special taste of home.

Indian mangoes — a ubiquitous part of summer in India — are unlikely to make the trip to America this year, importers and exporters say. India’s stringent COVID-19 regulations have rendered international trade nearly nonexistent.

Meanwhile, American retailers don’t want to take the risk of stocking a luxury item during an uncertain economic time, said Hiran Patel, the import manager for Raja Foods, which supplies Patel Brothers, the most prominent Indian grocery chain in the northeastern U.S. The market, which has a location on Newark Avenue in the heart of Jersey City’s Indian community, sells Indian mangoes in boxes of 9 or 12 for between $35 and $40 a box.

“Any retailer that sells Indian mangoes, they do it as a service to the customer,” he said. “They don’t make much money off of it.”

New York-based chef Palak Patel said she treks to Jersey City for Indian mangoes every year, grabbing a big box of okra and a bag of rice to round out the trip.

As a child in Western India, she would climb mango trees and pick her own. Mangoes that are sold in American supermarkets are often sourced from Latin America and simply don’t compare to depth of flavors found in their Indian counterparts, the chef said.

“It’s just decadent,” Palak Patel said of the Indian fruit. “It’s not like any other fruit that you can eat because it has so much depth to it.”

Last year, about 1,100 tons of Indian mangoes were shipped to the U.S. between mid-April and the end of June, said Jagdish Sukhia, export manager for Rushika Food Products, which ships mangoes to be sold in Patel Brothers stores.

The typical process involves United States Department of Agriculture officers traveling to India to inspect the mango processing facilities and Food and Drug Administration workers performing inspections when products arrive here, Hiran Patel said. This year, the processing facilities in India are closed and FDA inspections are taking place over Zoom, he said.

India closed its passenger airspace and is prioritizing shipments of medication and personal protective equipment for the continuing flights, he added.

If U.S. importers still wanted to acquire mangoes this year, they would have to self-manage getting the USDA clearance and irradiation, which can protect the mangoes from infestations, Sukhia said.

Plus, the shipping price would be much higher than normal.

“The movement of the flights without passengers have created pressure on the air freight prices,” the export manager said. “The current air freight rates from Indian to U.S. destinations are experiencing (a) three to four times spike compared to last year.”

4 Indian mango imports unlikely due to COVID-19

Demand for Indian mangoes in Jersey City is typically lower than in suburbs because its clientele is largely working-class professionals and college students who don’t want to spend close to $5 per mango, Hiran Patel said. Plus, most shoppers here walk to the store and don’t want to lug a heavy box home, he said.

But the customers who do buy Indian mangoes are some of Patel Brothers’ most passionate, guided by a sense of nostalgia, Hiran Patel said.

“We have customers that will buy 10 boxes of Indian mangoes,” he said, “It’s a $400 receipt and what they tell us is they go home, peel them, cut them and then freeze them so they can taste India all year round.”

Palak Patel said she’s had mangoes on her brain while quarantining.

“I was so desperate that I actually ordered one or two regular grocery story mangoes and they have so much fiber in them,” she said.

A summer without Indian mangoes is “one of the sad things amongst many other things,” the chef said.

“That’s to me, summer,” Palak Patel said. “Nothing screams summer until you’ve had a mango.”