The demand for grapes is higher than the supply at the moment, and this is causing a good market situation. "We are still in the middle of the South Africa season," says Lucien de Wit of PeDe. "The white seedless grape season is almost over. The rainfall in South Africa in February caused a number of quality problems. The supply from Chile is around 40% lower and this is why everyone wants grapes from India."
Lucien has visited countless vineyards all over the world over the years, but discovered a 'unicum' in India: "Our producer in India packages all grapes in newspaper, bunch by bunch, around 8 weeks before harvest. This is done to prevent the grapes being burnt by the sun and to prevent soft grapes."
The supply of the black seedless grapes and the Red Glove from South Africa will continue at PeDe until week 15, with weekly arrivals. "The quality is great," says Lucien. PeDe expects the first India grapes in the middle of next week. "Various parties have already started India grapes, we consciously started a little later as a result of the high minimum guarantee prices and because there was some bad weather two weeks ago."
"All in all the grape prices are hugely different to those of last year. 11/12 Euro for 4.5 kilos isn't a good price, but acceptable. Last year the price level was around 7 Euro, but there was far too much produce available then. This will be no different for the Indian grapes. No one has stocks and the grapes are coming into an empty market. This is a completely different situation to other years. Buyers are even carefully asking about Egyptian grapes, whilst the Egyptian grapes season was a disaster last year. This is why I expect the market for white seedless grapes to remain good for the time being. The conditions are good, but time will tell!"