“Fewer Chinese chestnuts and Nashi pears expected”

Yesterday, 888 Fruit Company received the first chestnuts at Cool Control in Maasdijk, the Netherlands. “From now, we will receive a container weekly. The harvest in China is somewhat lower, and because of the high price on the local market and the rate of the dollar, fewer chestnuts will be exported in total,” Nico Schaft expects. He focuses mostly on bigger sizes (30/40). “Europeans want big chestnuts.”

According to Schaft, the chestnuts are pre-eminently a products for the holidays. “Especially now that it is getting colder, people will buy chestnuts more often. The European target audience appreciates the chestnuts, but the Asian audience also buys them. The Chinese do not roast the chestnuts, they boil them.”

Next week, the Chinese assortment will be supplemented with the first arrival of Nashi pears. Of these, there will also be smaller volumes according to Schaft, because of the European MRL policy. “The less serious exporters cannot meet those demands.” 888 Fruit Company supplies Chinese products throughout Europe. “From our wholesaler’s in Rungis we supply to the French market a lot, but Dutch re-exporters also know how to find us.”