Color has been one of the hurdles in the latest season. He says that quality was fine, but there were problems with the color, as apples need very cold weather and the last winter in Europe was not very cold. “The best color we found was almost 85%. We certainly hope that the winter this season will help us obtain full color apples.”
The company has ambitious plans for the medium term in this market. “We started exporting 2 containers per week to Egypt from the Netherlands and Poland in September last year and our target is to increase this to 10 containers per week,” he explains. It looks like a big increase, but the Egyptian market has the capacity to take this easily. There have also been changes in the logistics process. “Last year, there were no direct shipping lines from Poland to Egypt and the only solution was to bring the apples to Italy or Slovenia; while this was quicker, we now have cheaper direct lines from Gdynia, in northern Poland, with a transit time of 23 days.”
The competition in selling apples is hard because there are many importers in Egypt. The fruit is available most of the year because after the harvest they can be stored for almost one year. “In the European Union, there are programs to buy the fruit for 45 cents per kilo for charitable ends from growers who didn’t succeed in finding buyers, but many still prefer to keep them in cold storage until good prices can be obtained.”
Citrozone also deals with pineapples, which is a new market for the firm. Abdelhady assures that the current goal is to move from suppliers in the Netherlands to direct imports. “We are busy now looking for suppliers in Costa Rica, Panama and Kenya to supply our customers in Europe, mainly Scandinavia. We want to get the pineapples from the source because it will be cheaper for us. For example, two weeks ago an 11 kilo box from the Netherlands cost €15. At the source, they now cost €7.5 .”
As for citrus fruits, the company CEO explains there are currently no high volumes coming into Europe from Egypt, because Egyptian suppliers concentrate on the Russian market due to the boycott of Turkish products. “At the moment, it is still too early to supply any data, since we are still at the beginning of the season, but the export volumes to Russia will surely be higher than last year. Russia is a huge market and there is room for all exporters.”
In order to meet its customer’s demand in Europe, Citrozone imports citrus fruits from Spain and Greece. All in all, there is an almost 15% lower supply of Valencia oranges in Egypt compared to last year, so we expect prices not to drop.For more information:
Ahmed Abdelhady
Citrozone (Egypt)
Tel: 0031 687432278
Email: info@citrozone.nl
www.citrozone.nl