The Unió de Llauradors (Grower's Union) has denounced the new appearance of oranges from South Africa on the shelves. In this case, it has been at Alcampo where the promotional posters indicate SA as the fruit's country of origin.
The purchase was made at the Alcampo supermarket in Aldaya, Valencia, last Saturday. The batch consists of category II Navel oranges with 87-100 mm calibres, which are sold for 0.48 Euro/kg and whose origin, according to the distribution chain, is South Africa. In Alcampo's online store, the fruit's country of origin is not specified.
La Unió has again complained that it is totally illogical for South African citrus to still be on supermarket shelves at this time, assuring that "it contradicts all arguments used to try justifying the presence of oranges in our markets when there are none available, and is also in deep contrast with the disastrous campaign suffered by citrus producers in the Region of Valencia, with ruinous prices and tremendous difficulties to find buyers for their fruit."
According to the association, "the import extension entails the possibility of entry of high volumes of bad quality citrus from the end of the South African season until beyond Christmas, as can be seen in Alcampo, which has a very negative impact on the local production, which is now at its best when it comes to organoleptic qualities. The possibility of the entry of South African oranges for a month and a half more was, is and will be, as La Unió has criticised, an obvious tool to put pressure on prices."
The first part of the citrus campaign has been an absolute disaster for the producers and has been aggravated by the commercial policies of certain distribution chains and the agreement with South Africa, as has been publicly reported by La Unió in recent months.