Egypt is having one of their better seasons when it comes to the sweet potatoes. The shortages in the United States leaves a window of opportunity for the Egyptian exporters. European demand is even slightly overwhelming for one exporter, who’s had to hire more people to deal with the extra work.
For Egyptian exporter Freshious the sweet potato season is surprisingly strong. Last year they only shipped a couple of containers for export, this season is completely different: “The shortages in the United States has made it so there is an unprecedented demand from European countries. It’s also had a great impact on the prices, which just about tripled,” says Mohamed Abdallah, owner of Freshious. “This has had a great impact on our season, as we suddenly had to increase our manpower to be able to deal with harvesting, packing and transporting the produce to its destination. We expect to export about 4,000 tons of sweet potatoes this season, which is an increase of 400 per cent compared to last season!”
The season did start a bit later than usual, as there was a cold period at the beginning. According to Abdallah this actually delayed harvest by quite a bit. “Normally we start harvesting around the 1st of July, but due to the colder weather at the start, harvest was delayed by about three weeks. Only since week 30 have we started to have produce available for export, with our first containers going towards the Netherlands and Germany. This was quite problematic for some of our clients, who were expecting their sweet potatoes at the start of July. However now that we are ready to go in full swing, our clients are happy to see the quality of the sweet potatoes is really good this year. It will be a satisfying season for everyone, we hope.”
The sweet potatoes of Freshious are already making their way to the Netherlands and Germany, but the United Kingdom is also a great market for the exporter: “Demand in these three countries is just very high, which makes them interesting. If I’d have to pick another country to export to, it would be Belgium. They have the same customs, demands and I feel it’s just a very similar market to those we already supply with our produce. South Africa is also shipping its sweet potatoes though, but I feel that we have an advantage over them both in location and timing.” Abdallah concludes.
For more information:
Mohamed Abdallah
Freshious
Tel: +20 127 347 6667
Email: Freshious@outlook.com