At the Hamburg wholesale market, the fruit importers are currently in a transitional phase. In the week before Easter, exotic fruits such as mangos and papayas are well received, but after this event demand is expected to return to normal, with stone fruit gradually coming to the fore, says Ugut Özkök, buyer and seller of H. Ehmann Fruchthandels GmbH Nachf.
Ugur Özkök (l) is witnessing pleasing demand for mangoes at Easter
Mangoes: South Africa replaces Peru
Currently, the fruit importer is in the middle of the mango season change: Peru's shipments are slowly coming to an end and instead, South Africa is entering the market.
On the whole, although the same varieties are obtained from both growing areas, one can already see significant differences in terms of quality. Özkök: "Peruvian airfreight mangoes usually taste somewhat better, but in when we're talking about mangoes shipped by sea, that is where South Africa is doing better." The price of the latter mangoes -regardless of their origin- is between €7 and 10 per box.
Stone fruit: season is picking up speed soon
Overall, the demand for exotic fruit around Easter is quite high. After these holidays, sales usually drop off gradually, says Özkök. This small decrease is continuous throughout the whole summer. Then, starting around October, sales pick up again. At the moment, wholesale customers are beginning to demand southern European stone fruit, says Özkok. "Last week, the first Spanish nectarines and peaches arrived. These are sold at quite high prices -€24 per 5 kg carton- compared to an average price of between €15-20. Increased arrivals are expected in about two weeks. From week 19 on, apricots will probably be arriving, and later the paraguayos. Cherries from various southern European growing areas like Turkey, Greece, Italy and of course Spain will start arriving soon as well."
Conspicuous marketing
Today's management took over the former family business on the Hamburg wholesale market on 1 January, 2018. Since then, many new customers have been won over, also by using online marketing -through their own homepage as well as Instagram and Facebook. "We are not where we want to be yet, but we have high hopes that our business will continue to grow in the next few years," concludes the marketer.
For more information:
H. Ehmann Fruchthandels GmbH Nachf
Großmarkthalle, Stand 354
Banksstraße 28, 20097 Hamburg
T: +49 (0) 40 33 62 88
F: +49 (0) 40 32 68 13
Mail: ugur@ehmann-frucht.de
www.ehmann-fruchthandel.de