The first commercial volumes of NERGI are now being harvested and Prim’land expect to have 600,000 punnets.
“We are pleased we will have good volumes as a lot of customers here in Asia are keen to buy this product. We're quite confident it will be a success.” It will be marketed as top end product snacking product.
“Last year due to climatic conditions we had a drop in our Oscar kiwi production, but it is back to normal this year,” said Prim'land's Jean Baptist Pinel. “Even with that drop in production we were able to keep our supplies up because we joined with two other packhouses. This harvest will be better and we will have even more volume than before due to the new packhouses.” The harvest of Oscar kiwis should begin in the last week of October, first week of November, but this will depend on the sugar levels of the fruit. The harvest is expected to be around 15,000 tons.
Pinel believes it will do well in Asian markets, where they see much potential for growth.
Oscar kiwi has been going to Asia for a few years. China is a specific market like many others, but the company has built up partnerships, Pinel explained it has been a step by step process to find good partners and this is important because they are in it for the long-term.
“At the moment we are testing gold varieties which are not sensitive to Psa, but they are not in production as we don’t want to invest before we have done all the testing.”
For more information:
Jean Baptist Pinel
Prim'land
Jean-baptiste.Pinel@primland.fr