"Difficult to organise promotions with more expensive fruit"

The fruit and vegetable market is developing differently than in previous years in multiple ways. This was said by Eddy Kreukniet of Exsa Europe. "The crisis has multiple indirect consequences. Exsa Europe has never sold directly to Russia, but has through the well known exporters. There is still the possibility to re-export produce form outside of the boycotted countries, but your paperwork has to be in order."

Another consequence according to Eddy is that you have to 'fight' to realise promotions. "The promotion willingness among growers for the more expensive products is low. At the moment people would rather put cheap pears or cucumber on offer for low consumer prices than that relatively expensive orange. On the other side we don't push it because the import fruit has been sold quite quickly so far."

Grapes
Exsa Europe will be offering Greek grapes until week 43 and has started loading the first Brazilian grapes. "Then the season will flow over to the new Brazilian harvest nicely," says Eddy. "The grape market is better than last year. The product isn't being pulled out from under you, but it certainly isn't a negative market. The market for red seedless grapes is especially good, with shortages from Spain and Italy. The seasons from Southern Europe will be finished earlier than last season which means the market will be open for the import fruit earlier. Exsa Europe expects the first arrivals from Nambia and South Africa around week 48-49."

Citrus
Eddy speaks of a very varied citrus season. "Grape fruit and mandarins were under heavy pressure, but oranges haven't really been in trouble. Now we have to wait and see how the end of the season will go, but so far it's a good orange season. But the Black Spot measures have had a lot of impact on the season. "Other markets, like Asia and Russia were hugely influenced by this. It was a very difficult season outside of Europe. Around 3 million boxes of fruit less were sent to Europe compared to last season, around 15-20% of the total."

He expects a good overlap to the Spanish season. "The hand oranges from South Africa are ending soon and Spain will be on the market around week 42/43. The first Spanish Salustiana's won't be here before the end of November/ beginning of December, so the juicing orange season is also flowing nicely. Grapefruit has now dried up completely and the first Israeli grapefruit is arriving on an empty market."

For more information:
Eddy Kreukniet
Exsa Europe
Tel: +31 88 735 0003
Mob: +31 620 25 78 11
info@exsaeurope.com
www.exsaeurope.com