Grape sales challenging

The oversea grape season has started with very little product and high prices, but prices plummeted when more volumes became available, "Christmas sales were certainly hard and the prices too low. Statistics show that during the first few weeks a lot more grapes were being exported from South Africa. After Christmas, prices fell even further, and it has been a real challenge to get rid of the grapes," says Lucien de Wit van PeDe from Venlo, a small town in the south of the Netherlands.

Large volumes

"It is expected that Chile and Argentina are going to send more grapes to Europe. The reason for this being that importers are importing grapes at much lower volumes than in previous years due to the crisis in Russia. Therefore, most of these volumes will most likely end up in Europe," Lucien expects. "India is about to begin; they expect a 20-25% drop in their yield this year. There are also reports that Russia is cancelling orders, which suggests that the large volumes from India will come to the EU."

For more information:
PeDe B.V
Lucien de Wit
l.dewit@pede.nl
www.pede.nl
077-3230225