Smaller sizes, high prices and insufficient demand is a fair description of the current Turkish lemon season. With a couple of varieties also taking a hit in terms of production, there were some challenges to overcome. Luckily new markets offered a solution for one specific Turkish exporter.
The Turkish lemon season is in full swing right now, and it hasn’t been a fairy tale story so far. According to Mustafa Arslan, owner of MDA Agricultural Products (MDA-Agro), there was more than enough to complain about: “The season started with some problems; There were mainly small calibers available, costs were very high and demand was not sufficient. The Enterdonato variety started on the 27th of September, but the expensive prices on the farms did not match the selling price for exporters.”
In terms of production, the Enterdonat variety took a large hit compared to last year. According to Arslan the Adana area will produce 70 per cent less this season. “The Mayer variety will have similar volumes available and it’s a little early to say what will happen to the Lamas variety. However about 10 to 15 per cent less production for Lamas is expected. The Enterdonato variety is the most popular variety we export this season. There are good calibers available, the aroma is good and these are more suitable for long shipments.”
It’s unlikely the lemons will be damaged by the weather at this point, as they are pretty strong. The same can not be said about the company’s mandarins. “We expect heavy rain near the end of October and if it continues perpetually, it means game over for our Satsuma and Dobashi Beni mandarins and Washington oranges. Lemons are stronger than these products, but heavy rains can also cause rot problems during the transportation. It’s very difficult to avoid this.” Arslan explained.
MDA Agro had the intention to start their lemon season later, as prices start very high at the beginning. They drop fairly quickly after the season started, but did the late start benefit MDA Agro in the end? “Yes, I’ve reaped the benefits from starting late. First off, most of the companies that started earlier than me, were forced to export smaller calibers of the Mayer variety lemons.
The fruit ripeness also wasn’t quite there yet to pack the fruits straight away, so after unloading the importers suddenly faced some quality issues and have sold these early lemons quite slowly,” Arslan said. “I’m sure a couple of quality claims have been made to the exporter due to these problems. Now MDA-Agro started about ten to twelve days later than the normal season, and we’ve packed much bigger sizes, with good quality. Now surely all calibers are generally smaller this season, but the smaller sized lemons were ripe enough to harvest around the 15th of September.”
Arslan claimed the Far East was one of the market that shows real potential about a month ago. His company acted on it to enter these markets. “We managed to enter Hong Kong, Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia and Bangladesh, but other Turkish exporters have had very aggressive marketing in these markets. Therefore it’s not as attractive for MDA as we thought it would be. We did start loading into Canada last season, which was very successful. This season we hope to increase the volume of shipments to the North American region.”
For more information:
Mustafa Arslan
MDA Agricultural Products
Mobile: +90 541 348 39 09
Email: mustafa@mda-agro.com
www.mda-agro.com