According to the CEO of the Association of Table Grape Growers from Peru (Provid), Sandro Farfán Padilla, exports of table grapes from Peru will amount to 177,000 tonnes in this 2013/2014 season.
"Estimates are, that in this campaign, exports will grow by 15%, on that of the previous year (2012/ 2013) when 153,950 tonnes were shipped," he said.
He indicated that Provid, which groups 62 agricultural exporting companies, sent 90% of the previous year's total volume and is expected to maintain the same participation in this campaign.
He also mentioned that, statistically, the weeks with the highest recorded volumes of shipments were between mid November and mid January, hence they expect the highest peaks of table grapes exports to be in weeks 47 to 52 of 2013, and 1, 2 and 3 of 2014.
He also noted that the Redglobe grape variety, of which 120,253 tonnes (78% of the total) were exported in the previous year, would be the most demanded table grape variety in this campaign, followed by the Sugraone Seegles variety (that had exports that amounted to 10,874 tonnes last season), Flame Seedless (9,294 tonnes approx), Crimson Seedless (6,893 tonnes approx), Thompson Seedless (3,360 tonnes approx), White Seedless (1,105 tonnes approx) and Autumn Royal (785 tonnes approx), among others.
Provid's CEO stressed that they had been working for four years so that Peruvian table grapes can enter the Japanese market. In this regard, he said, this was the last year of testing and, starting in the 2014/2015 campaign, they would be able to ship significant volumes.
He also said that the major destination markets during the last campaign had been China (to which they exported 30,500 tonnes approx), the United States (27,370 tonnes approx), The Netherlands (26,814 tonnes approx), Russia (16,740 tonnes approx), the United Kingdom (8,241 tonnes approx), and Thailand (7,301 tonnes approx) among others. A list that, he believes, won't change much throughout this campaign.
Source: Agraria.pe