So far, the current Spanish stone fruit campaign has been marked by delays in the harvests in all production areas, as well as by a significant lack of supply. This is causing prices to remain stable at a time when there is usually downward pressure on them.
"The fruit has suffered the impact of frost, heavy rains and hail, so, even though we have already started having good volumes (a little later than usual), we will have a smaller production compared to last year," says the manager of Fruits de Ponent, Josep Presseguer.
"There is always some downward pressure on prices at a given time, but this year, we simply don't have more fruit. This applies to all production areas. We have enough stocks to last two days, three at the most; so far, we haven't been able to supply all the fruit that was demanded from us, so this must necessarily translate into higher prices than last year," says Josep Presseguer. "Prices are remaining stable at a time when there should already be a lot of pressure on them," he adds. "France and Italy have considerably reduced their production and that is also evident. We hope that large distributors will understand this situation during the rest of the campaign."
According to the manager of the cooperative, "stone fruit should not be used by stores as a commodity to attract customers, nor should it become a product that makes operators compete to see who can supply it for the lowest price. Also, large distributors will have to understand some day that the strict requirements imposed on the producers in terms of penetromy and ripeness do not help motivate the consumption of stone fruit. The demand would likely be much greater if we could offer fruit harvested in a more optimal point of ripeness. There would be losses, yes, but the sales returns would be much juicier, because there would be repeat purchases. Of course, there could be promotions for the fruit on the shelves that is already too ripe and encourage their processing into jams. We need to be more creative."
"Together with Anecoop, we will promote our fruit in Eastern Europe"
At the latest edition of Fruit Logistica, in February, Fruits de Ponent announced its partnership with the second degree cooperative Anecoop.
"In this first stone fruit campaign with Anecoop we are noticing greater communication and a better exchange of information between all the producing areas. By working through a trading platform like Anecoop, we hope to establish ourselves in markets that had so far been, say, weaker for Fruits de Ponent in the stone fruit sector, like Eastern and Central European countries. Furthermore, Anecoop will benefit from our specialization, our know-how in the export of these products and our leadership in stone fruit production in Catalonia. The fact is that Anecoop had so far been more focused on the marketing of fruit in the south and the Spanish Levante. Our relationship with them was already very good before joining us, so in that sense, things haven't changed that much," concludes Josep Presseguer.
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