North American company selling Spanish cherries to Asian countries

Sutherland S.A. Produce Inc. is a North American company working with Spanish producers since 2014. "It was Mike Lloyd, of Global Orchards UK, who got us in touch, and we have been working hard to build a solid business relationship ever since," states Rick Chong, sales manager Of Sutherland SA Produce Inc. So far, the volume we have been able to export to Asian countries has been limited, as "growers need to continue upgrading their technology, improving the cold chains and aiming for agreed harvest windows to ensure quality, etc.," adds Chong.

Nevertheless, this season they expect to export more than 100,000 boxes. "Fortunately, the quality protocols for cherries in Asian countries will still take approximately two years to implement, which will give us enough time," explains Chong.

"The reason we go to Spain is because we want to guarantee our Asian customers a constant supply of cherries all year round," affirms Chong. Spain, according to Sutherland SA Produce Inc., "has many cherry varieties that are excellent for markets in Asia and the Middle East." Some of the main customers demanding these cherries are Hong Kong, Singapore, Indonesia and Dubai.

As an anecdote, Chong says that they have started to see more standardised weather patterns this year for the first time since 2014, so they expect to have a bigger production, although the final volume has yet to be confirmed. On the one hand, Spain had a bad harvest in the last two seasons; on the other hand, North America was ahead of the usual schedule. This made "demand decrease drastically, although we continue to invest our time and resources in Spain," confirms Chong. As a general rule, the seasons of California and Washington overlap with Spain; however, the stronger varieties ripen earlier in Spain, which gives this company the ability to market each region's production without any difficulty.