"Spain: "We will harvest cherries later and with larger calibres"

"The frosts will not have an impact on the cherry volumes, but we will have less work to do in the thinning, as well as larger sizes in the earlier varieties, given the lower load of fruit in the trees. The exception to this is the early variety Santina, as it has been affected and we expect its production to fall by around 30-40%," he says.

There is still rainfall and temperatures are rather low, although these do not represent a threat for now. "Apparently, it will continue to rain in the next few days, and we are almost at the stage when the rain could become harmful to the fruit," says the young entrepreneur.

Carlos Llambrich also sells greenhouse cherries, produced by Javier de Pablo Camarasa in 4 hectares equipped with heating. "We plan to market the first greenhouse cherries on 15 April. We expect a good, high quality production, since we have had enough hours of cold."

Llamfruit expects to sell 600,000 kilos of cherries this year and this volume will continue to increase, with the prospect of reaching one million two hundred thousand kilos by 2020 (combining its own production with that of other producers). For this reason, the company is launching a new 2,000 square metre packing station this year, equipped with a new entrance chamber, optical sorter and hydrocooling, and with all the necessary certifications to be able to export.