Consumption of exotic fruit is usually not so lively in Italy during summer, as people tend to prefer local peaches, nectarines, melons, watermelons, etc. However, demand for counter seasonal products has to deal with the fact that some products have been quite difficult to procure.
This is the case for avocados, reported Claudio Gorini, sales manager for AL.MA., a leading company in the import and distribution of fresh, exotic and counter seasonal fruit.
"Finding Pinkerton avocados has been like finding water in the desert. We had to fall back on Hass or Zutano. I would not know whether to say this season was very good because of the prices or very bad because of procurement difficulties."
The consequences of El Niño are still being felt - the Peruvian asparagus season is late and the Dominican pineapple season was affected by the heavy rainfall.
"We might be able to see counter seasonal asparagus only in around ten days' time. For what concerns pineapples from the Dominican Republic, we usually handle 2,100-2,200 crates this tome of year, but this year we have only handled 500-600."
Play to watch a video on the harvesting on pineapples in Santo Domingo
"We tried to get some produce from Colombia as an alternative, but unfortunately quality is not very good as we do not have someone there that can check the produce before shipping."
Colombian pineapples with shelf-life problems.
Limes are actually doing quite well. "Prices are usually higher in June and July due to the lack of produce, but large volumes of produce have been arriving in the past week from Mexico so prices are okay, although quotations remain high due to the lively demand."
Contatcs:AL.MA. s.r.l.
Via Lombroso, 54
20137 Milano
Tel.: (+39) 02 5510622
Fax: (+39) 02 55195646
Email: almafrutta@tin.it
Web: www.almafrutta.it