The second Soft Fruit Congress will take place in Huelva, Spain, on 22nd and 23rd June 2016. It is an international congress and Italy is the only European country that has been invited.
The Italian delegation will be made up of the vice-president of Italia Ortofrutta and general director of Asso Fruit Italia Andrea Badursi and Frutthera sales manager Federico Nicodemo for the Strawberry product committee (established by the Ministry for Agricultural, Food and Forestry Policy within the Italian Fresh Produce interbanch organisation) as well as AOP Armonia sales manager Marco Eleuteri.
Production
Federico Nicodemo will talk about the Italian production. "In Italy, around 3,500 hectares are dedicated to strawberry production. According to the data provided by the CSO, strawberry crops covered around 4,400 hectares in the early 2000s."
Areas dedicated to strawberry cultivation during the 2015/16 season
| Region | Percentage (%) |
| Basilicata | 23.6 |
| Campania | 22.6 |
| Veneto | 11 |
| Emilia-Romagna | 6.8 |
| Sicily | 8.7 |
| Trentino | 6.2 |
| Calabria | 4.7 |
| Piedmont | 3.9 |
| Other regions | 12.6 |
"Ten years ago, in 2005/06, Campania was the leading region with 22.7%, followed by Veneto (14.2%), Basilicata (12.1%), Sicily (9%), Calabria (7.7%), Trentino (6.9%) and Piedmont (5.2%). The other regions represented 11.6%".
If we consider the varieties, Federico reports that in 2015 Basilicata became the leading producer of Candonga strawberries. In 2016, in addition to Candonga (82%), other cultivated varieties are Sabrina (8%) and Nabila (7%). The other cultivars represent 3% of the total.
"In Campania, 60% of the production is of the Sabrina variety, followed by Candonga with 11%, Amiga with 9%, Camarosa and Fortuna with 5% each, Rania with 3%. Other cultivars represent 8%."
The leading variety in Veneto is Eva with 33%, followed by Garda (17%), Antea (11%), Roxana (6%), Apo2 (5%), FC15 (5%), Apo1 (4%), Irma (3%), Darselect (3%), others (14%).
Alba, Brilla and Roxana are the main varieties in Emilia-Romagna, covering 18, 17 and 16% respectively. They are followed by Tecla (9%), Joly (8%), Asia (8%), Sibilla (3%) and Clery (3%). Other cultivars represent 18% of the total.
Consumption and the Italian market
Marco Eleuteri will talk about consumption and the Italian market. "We have become the fourth customers for the Spanish produce. We import more than we export. In terms of consumption, we can say people eat strawberries increasingly early - in April rather than in May. Anyway consumption has increased by 20% in the last decade."
"During my speech, I will analyse the data of a leading Italian distribution chain comparing Spanish and Italian strawberries, as the former have increased from 8 to 15% in the last 5 years. In March, April and May, Spanish strawberries are always available on the shelves and their price really makes a difference."
Data from a leading Italian distribution chain comparing Italian and Spanish strawberries. Click here to enlarge.
"I will also report the comments of a few Italian buyers on current trends. Italian consumers are showing an increased interest for the domestic produce and are even willing to pay more for it. In addition, they seem to be appreciating the fact that some countries promote the origin of their fruit with special flags or labels."
"Compared to Spain, Italy has higher production costs (at least €0.30/kg). This in turn means we need to focus on offering a higher quality. The main difficulty we face when doing this though, is the fact that supermarkets do not differentiate strawberries according to the varieties: on the shelves you can find different producers that supply different varieties, despite the fact that now production is much more uniform than in the past. Supermarket chains do not differentiate them, so it is more difficult to know which product is which."