Agri Kultuur February / Februarie 2016 | Page 49

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: