The Turkish lemon season does not appear to be as good as some growers made it out to be. A combination of strong rivalry between Turkish exporters and the downswing of the Lira has made the situation very delicate. The fact that the calibers of the lemons started out rather small doesn’t help either.
The season for Turkish lemons has been underway for quite a while now, starting around the 20th of August. According to Mustafa Arslan, export manager for MDA Agricultural Products (MDA), the season started out very nicely, but this quickly turned: “At around mid-September prices started to decrease week by week, depending on the small calibers and the poor marketing. The fact is that there is huge competition between Turkish exporters.”
“When we started the Enterdonat variety on 20 September, we faced the same situation. At the start the prices were good, there was a good demand. However for some reason Turkish exporters start to reduce prices, while the Euro and Dollar currency increase. The exporters seem to think they can continue lowering prices while our currency is struggling, just to be more competitive,” Arslan says. “Of course at some point the Dollar and Euro decreased again, but our prices stayed the same. We basically lost between 1000 to 1300 US dollars from every truck we sent out. And not just the lemons, it’s the same for mandarins, oranges and grapefruits. I’d say this season is the worst in history.“
The situation leads to Arslan thinking ahead for next season. Where MDA normally exports to the Balkans and both West and Eastern Europe, the company is now looking for new markets: “We are looking for the Arabic Market and countries in the Far East for next season, because every year the situation becomes a bit worse for selling. The general demand in Europe and the Balkans also decrease every year. So we have no choice but to improve our business in the Far Eastern countries,” Arslan says.
With most lemon-producing countries looking at Spain as their main competitor, Arslan feels this isn’t even relevant for the Turkish exporters. “Spain is not our competitor because in Turkey our exporters compete only with other Turkish exporters. Spanish products are always better than ours. They do a good job, thanks to good marketing. From the Turkish perspective, the only ‘good’ marketing we know is lowering our prices. Poor marketing, poor quality and commissions of sales are killing our market. For example in Poland and Holland the prices are much more lower than the export prices in Turkey. We have to build a new marketing model, a new association for the exporters to control quality, of the produce and the packing in all stages, so that maybe one day, we can compete with Spain the right way.”
One thing that could help Turkey recover this season would be the sizes of the lemons. Like Mexico and Spain, the Turkish lemons started out rather small this year. “At the beginning of the season the sizes were smaller, and as a result the prices decreased sharply. We have good calibers at the moment though. For instance our Lamas lemons started with small calibers last week, but most of the lemons are of the caliber 3, 4 or 5 right now. This means there are no issues with sizes at the moment and that in itself is good marketing.” Arslan concludes.
For more information:
Mustafa Arslan
MDA Agricultural Products
Mobile: +90 541 348 39 09
Email: mustafa@mda-agro.com
www.mda-agro.com