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Arnaldo Eijsink, Labrunier:
“Our experimental garden in Petrolina for new grapes is unique globally”
Brazilian grape giant Labrunier was founded more than 40 years ago when Jacques Defforey, founder of the global supermarket chain Carrefour, and Arnaldo Eijsink decided to start a grape plantation in Brazil. Arnaldo Eijsink is still at the helm of the production company, which has 900 hectares. An area of 100 hectares will be converted for new varieties in coming years. “Our focus for the next few years will be on switching from old to new varieties. We’ll only start thinking about another expansion of the area from 2019/20.”
Arnaldo Eijsink
“It’s unique that our company has a testing ground of nearly four hectares, on which we test about 20 new varieties. We now have 18 different commercial varieties. All varieties are now tested on ten different rootstocks, so that we can see per variety how parameters like brix, resistance and colour can be best combined. The first harvest of this new programme will become available next year. We are unique in that, and that’s why customers from all corners of the world visit our experimental garden to assess the varieties,” Arnaldo says. “Our strength is that the company was originally a supermarket. Because of that, we know how our retail customers think and what they want. In fact, our customers determine which varieties are planted.”
Labrunier has its production in Petrolina, and has two harvests per year. “The first harvest is from April to June, after which we take a break in July. Our second harvest is from August to November,” Arnaldo says. He is satisfied with this year’s harvest. “We have a good harvest, both in terms of quality and volume. Some rain was predicted for November, so that’ll cost us some good night’s rest. Brazil is becoming increasingly important with new varieties on the global grape market. Peru was investing a lot in growing grapes, but they suffered much damage because of heavy weather earlier this year. Brazilian grapes are a great alternative because of this.”
“Europe is still our most important market. We are mostly in the northern half, above France. Our biggest customers are Germany, Scandinavia, the Netherlands and Belgium. Additionally, we also supply the Far and Middle East, the US, Canada, and closer to home we supply Argentina and the local Brazilian market from north to south,” Arnaldo says. “The exchange rate – 3.8 Real for 1 euro at the moment – has been fairly favourable to us regarding export, although we did expect a bit more. In coming weeks, we’ll start to gradually decrease volumes for the European market, to make room for supply from Namibia and South Africa.”
The production company recently entered into a strategic cooperation with Pacific Trellis Fruit from Los Angeles to supply new Brazilian grapes to the North American market. The CEO of Labrunier has noticed that desires vary greatly per country. “In North America, we’ve seen much demand for white varieties Cotton Candy and Sweet Globe and red variety Jack’s Salute. That one also does well in Europe, like Sugar Crisp. Besides, seedless blue variety Francis , which was developed by a different Brazilian agriculturalist, does very well in the UK and Scandinavia. As much as 90 per cent of our varieties is seedless.”
“The climate in Petrolina is ideally suited for growing grapes, but other crops are also on the rise. For example, investments to grow pears in this region are now being made. The majority of the pears here are currently still imported from the US and Portugal, but Rocha-like varieties can also be grown here perfectly well,” Arnaldo says. He doesn’t think Labrunier will start to focus on growing pears. “We have a different job to do first: switching to new grape varieties!”