"Next three weeks unprecedented grape shortage before South Africa season"

"With the Brazilian grapes, the overseas grape season started at Olympic Fruit," André Nieuwenhuis reports. "The European season is ending quickly, at least a month earlier than last year. The next three weeks, we'll be seeing an unprecedented shortage leading up to the South African season."

He summarizes the season. "Last year, we once again worked hard to get a position in the most important areas. Until the beginning of December, we are expecting grapes from Brazil. Beautiful grapes are coming from Peru as well in the upcoming season, including Red Globe. Following that we travel to South Africa and Namibia. Between March and June, we will also make use of our professional grower from India for white, seedless grapes. And if necessary, we also have growers in Chile at our disposal, so we can offer continuity in supply and quality."

"We supply the trusted basic varieties, including the well-known seedless varieties like Early Sweet, Prime, Sugraone and Crimson, and the varieties with seeds, like Dan Ben Hannah, Victoria and La Rochelle," the importer sums up. "Also, starting this season, we can once again offer the special Delight range, with the tasty white Muscat Delight, the blue seedless Evans Delight and the two red varieties with seeds: African Delight and Tropical Delight. These varieties are bred and developed by Hoekstra Fruit Farms from South Africa."

Sustainability
Last year, Olympic Fruit signed the IDH (Sustainable Trade Initiative) covenant, so sustainability is high on the agenda. "In South Africa, we started implementing the SIZA standard (Sustainability Initiative of South Africa). Together with a number of our main growers, we organized workshops for employees. The focus is on a fair and sustainable way of production. That means, for instance, taking into account the environment, and having a safe workplace, free of racism and a maximum number of overtime hours per week," André says. "Hoekstra Fruit Farms is a company that's constantly evolving, both in terms of food safety and regarding ethics. So this company is one of the first participants in the SIZA projects, and has now been SIZA certified."

Fruit & Joy
"The coming year, we will also deploy our Fruit & Joy brand more and more. Only our best and most reliable growers can supply this brand," the trader concludes. "So you can be sure that products in the Fruit & Joy brand represent continuous quality and a professional image."

For more information:
Olympic Fruit BV
André Nieuwenhuis
Handelscentrum ZHZ 40-A
2991 LD Barendrecht
Tel. +31 180 64 62 03
www.olympicfruit.com