After several discussions with the Ministry of Agriculture, Afrucat, the Association of Catalan Fruit companies, has been able to communicate to its associated companies that, despite not having yet had access to the regulation's text, it is already possible to start requesting withdrawals based on its draft.
Merely the draft was needed for the peach and nectarine market to react. "Now the threshold below which no one will sell stands at 26.9 cents," says Manel Simon, CEO of Afrucat.
In response to the consultation to the Department of Agriculture, which is the
entity responsible for inspecting the goods to be withdrawn, confirmation has also been received that "it is already possible to appeal to the future regulation for the withdrawal of peaches with retroactive effect from 11 August."
The first companies have already contacted the processing industries and have expressed their willingness to withdraw some of their produce. This will now have to be notified to the Department and to SERMA (Regulation Service for the Agrifood Markets) and it is expected that these peach and nectarine withdrawals, which will be used for the production of juice destined for charity, will start taking effect next week.
Simon appreciates "the speed with which the measure has been introduced, especially considering that the administrations have started enforcing it based on a draft regulation." One of the most remarkable aspects of this mechanism is the ability to apply even if the fruit producer associations involved have exhausted their Operational Programmes, as the only limitation is 10% of the sales volume.