"Spain: "We need to keep our guard up to maintain our top fruit sales"

The decline in the top fruit production across Europe in the 2017/2018 season has allowed Catalan apples and pears to enjoy smooth sales and good prices which, in the case of apples, are clearly above the levels reached in the previous campaign.

At present, Europe has 23% less apples in storage than last season and 1% less pears, while Catalonia also has 23% less apples in chambers and 18% more pears.

Despite the optimistic figures and the satisfaction with the campaign, the Managing Director of Afrucat, Manel Simon, affirms that "we should keep our guard up to maintain this fluidity of sales and sell out the stocks in storage." According to Simon, "we have to keep in mind that if the summer fruit campaign starts earlier, top fruit sales will slow down."

Simon adds that the market situation this year has been used by several companies to give a push to domestic fruit on the shelves, where one in every two apples is imported (from France or Italy), as well as one in every two pears (from the Netherlands or Belgium).