"The crop is looking good, eating quality is very good, sizes have been slightly down up to now but this has improved and we are back to normal sizing. On the whole the volumes will be similar to 2013," explains du Preez.Pears from South Africa had a good export season last year, this year exports are expected to be slightly down, but only by a percent or two. This is because of the situation of high stocks in Europe and also a good local processing price in South Africa. "Williams pears are either for export or canning so people have decided to go for canning, only the bigger sizes will go for export because our exporters know the market is full and there is no point sending smaller sizes to the European markets," according to du Preez. He expects exports of Williams will be down 600,000 cartons.
Meanwhile exports to the African market continue to grow, in fact last year Africa with 32%, bumped the UK from its traditional position as the top apple export market, it now takes third place behind Africa and Far Eastern Asia.
Du Preez said last year was an unusual year in the UK market because Chile came with a lot of small sizes and South African exporters said it was not worth trying to compete with those prices so they stayed away from the UK.
Africa keeps growing, but shipping there is not any cheaper than to the EU, "It is much more difficult and also a case of supply and demand with the shipping lines. There are not so many regular ships going up and down. Logistics are still challenging in Africa, but things are getting slightly better as the guys have longer term clients year on year, but it is still limited to apples and pears which have a longer shelf-life and can take the journey. If you take the Africa shipments -32% of our export- also domestic sales of ±35% of total production, Africa, including South Africa is by far our biggest market now.
South African topfruit will be making its way to mainland China for the first time this season. "Hopefully the first container will leave this month. All the paper work has been done we are just waiting for it to be signed off so we can send the first container. It will be interesting to see what China holds for us, at the moment we will send Fujis, redder types of Royal Gala, Royal Beaut, but Fuji will be the big one. It will mostly be big sizes. As with any new market there is a bit of uncertainty at the moment and it will be very interesting to see what happens," said du Preez.
Hortgro is already started the process of gaining access for pears to China. Also last month inspectors from Thailand were in South Africa to inspect grapes and were persuaded to stay on and look at the apples and pears. So the outlook for South Africa topfruit is, at he moment at least, looking positive.
For more information:
Jacques du Preez
HORTGRO
Eamil: jacques@hortgro.co.za
Tel: +27 82 864 8149