Spanish raspberries seeing good supply and demand

The market for Spanish raspberries is developing well, says Jan van Bergeijk from Frutas Remolino. The company, that grows raspberries on 49 acres of land, is part of the Plusberries group, which includes five companies that are specialized in strawberries, raspberries, blackberries and blueberries. Within the group Jan is commercially responsible for the raspberries, "There are enough raspberries on the market, but demand continues to increase, in part due to the availability."

"Around Christmas, demand usually increases, but there are only two Christmas days and the demand is still good," says Jan. "We picked the raspberries throughout the whole summer. Everyone had the new harvest on the market a bit later and that helped create a stable price. This resulted in a good raspberry price between 7 and 11 Euro per kilo, depending on the destination, packaging and variety. Demand from the U.K. and France has been good so far, and actually all the destinations are doing well."

 

This year in the Spanish soft fruit region of Huelva a trend has continued in which strawberry cultivation is dropping and raspberry, blackberry and blueberry cultivation is growing, "There are 10-12% more raspberries, the percentage of blackberries is also increasing even though the growing area is smaller and blueberries have seen an increase of 15-20%," says Jan, who has lived and worked in Spain for more than 25 years.

According to Jan, competition from other countries is nonexistent right now, "Egypt is a competitor with strawberries, but grows hardly any raspberries. Mexico has a lot of raspberries, but they are dependent on the climate and they also focus on other destinations. The only other countries that could be competitors are Morocco and Portugal, but in 80% of the cases there is enough room for everyone. Overall, I am confident about the rest of the season. We had good weather and we have great quality raspberries."