Opportunities for California prunes in Japan

The dried plum market looks to have ample supply right now.

“There are a lot of prunes available. There’s definitely no shortage of supply,” says Sekul Spaich of the California Packing Co. based in Olivehurst, Ca. “The sales are a little better than last year but there are still plenty of prunes out there.”

While harvest on California plums begins at the end of August, Spaich anticipates that California Packing will still have dried plums from the 2017 crop going into 2018.

Part of the challenge is selling California plums domestically and internationally. “It’s also difficult to sell them into Europe because Chile’s kind of taken over the market,” says Spaich. “Their price is substantially lower than ours. They’ve been lower than us for at least the last four years. It used to be that they were .15-20 cents lower than us but now they can be $1 lower than us on pitted prunes.”

Possibilities in Japan

That said, California has a reputation for quality pitted prunes and it’s the reputation that’s carried over into one Asian market: Japan. “In Chile, they sun dry their prunes but Japan doesn’t prefer that so we sell into Japan,” says Spaich. That said, we import a lot of Chilean prunes and put them out on the domestic market. We have to import from Chile and Argentina to compete domestically. The domestic buyers are moving more towards Chilean prunes and it’s almost become the norm.”

As for demand, domestic demand has picked up slightly, about 10 percent more this year. Prices are approximately the same as 2017’s as well.

Looking ahead to the 2018 season, it’s a bit of a wait and see approach right now. “I talk with my growers and some of them say they have a really good crop and others say they’re wiped out so we’re not sure,” says Spaich.

For more information:

Sekul Spaich
California Packing Co.
Tel: +1 (530) 740-1040
info@calprune.com
www.calprune.com