“This year’s pear flavour is exceptionally good, the warm summer resulted in high concentrations of sugar in the fruit,” says Mark Vernooij of Urfruit. “This year, even Lucas tastes much better than normally, we’re getting very positive responses to this pear from various destinations. Unfortunately, the high sugars are also resulting in an accelerated ripening process for the pears. In the past you could easily work with a stock of one or two weeks old, but this year you can barely work with a one-week-old stock. The pears lose quality very quickly, which requires a strict sorting and sales schedule.”
“We’re currently seeing a rising line regarding pricing on the pear market. This was necessary as well. After October, the market entered a slump, and it remained there even during the holidays. When the new year started the market finally became a bit friendlier. This was partly caused by less sorted product being available on the market because of the many production workers who traditionally celebrate the holidays in their countries of birth. We’re really hoping this recovery will last in the coming period, because net prices for growers are still low despite this price correction, and costs can hardly be covered,” Mark continues.
“The quality of most batches isn’t immediately better than expected, loss percentages are higher than in previous years. Besides, shelf life is causing higher decay percentages in shops, also resulting in challenges,” Mark explains.
“Sales are currently going quite smoothly regarding volume. We send shipments to various retail chains throughout Europe every day. Losing the Russian market is and will remain an important issue. This market always immediately resulted in better pricing when demand increased even a little. Sales to further destinations are increasing every year, which should result in a calmer market in time. For this season we’ve stopped with far destinations, mainly because of the bad shelf life. Despite this, we still managed to bring Dutch product to new markets, and we’re hoping to continue to grow in this in the coming years.”
Urfruit will also be present at the Fruit Logistica in Berlin, Hall 3.2 stand D11.
For more information:
Mark Vernooij
Urfruit
Hof van Kettelerij 20
7251 DS Vorden, the Netherlands
T. +31 575 47 24 73
m.vernooij@urfruit.nl
www.urfruit.nl