The weather this year is causing the Ercolini pear campaign to be atypical. Rainfall, frost and, more recently, a heat wave have led to an earlier start of the harvest in Lleida and Extremadura, causing them to overlap with Murcia, which is always the first.
"Due to the large volume of pears in the market at the moment, current prices fail to cover the production costs," affirms Andrés Martínez, manager of Paytofruit. In fact, the difference in price compared to last year is of 0.20 Euro and now stands at 0.85 Euro per kilo.
But not only has there been overproduction and a concentration of supply in Spain, as Italy, the other great producer of Ercolini pears, has also started earlier with the harvest. "Since they have their own production, we have no chance of selling them our fruit," explains Martínez. Consequently, Paytofruit has decided to "store the goods in chambers and wait for the availability of fruit in the market to fall and for prices to become more attractive."
For more information:
Andrés Martínez Palazón
Paytofruit
T: +34 669502095