and temperature permitting) the fruit may be a size
bigger.
"I think we will start mid-April as normal and continue
through to the end of June, we will stretch it as far we
can to help with the marketing. The sugar levels should
be high and quality should be excellent," assures Erwee.
The European demand has steadied off after a few
years of oversupply and according to Erwee there have
been enough trees taken out and new markets developed in the last few years to make grapefruit profitable
again. He adds that it is also not the most economical
fruit to export as it is packed in big cartons only fitting
a few on each pallet, logistically it is very expensive.
Asia is known to demand bigger fruit and on grapefruit
they prefer the medium to large sizes which won't be
freely available this year, "China and Korea are paying a
premium and fixed prices for those sizes so I would
guess that those markets will get priority, Japan on the
other hand does not feature significantly in our exports
anymore, we have a decreasing trend like Florida with
them. The exchange rate this year will make huge difference but that is the case for every country so I don't
see much going to Japan, we are not focussing on Japan as the main market any more as it has not been a
profitable market the past couple of seasons."
Alliance Fruit's volumes will be down 30-40% on last
year if we stay only with the same growers, but it
seems to be the same for everyone up north, growers in
the Eastern Cape do seem to have a better crop.
Alliance Fruit will focus on China, Korea and the South
Sea Islands and of course Europe, that still takes about
40% of our volumes.
Publication date: 2/18/2016
Author: Nichola Watson
Copyright: www.freshplaza.com
For more information:
Erwee Topham
Alliance Fruit
Tel: +27 83 642 8089
Email: [email protected]
www.alliancefruit.co.za
Source: