Finally, a generally positive season after the difficult one last year. 2020 is the beginning of a new era for VIP. A dynamic season, with regular sales (that equal 1/3 of the harvest in the second week of February) and a particular focus on small fruit sizes.
"From this season, we’ll manage our apples with the help of a centralized processing process," affirms Martin Pinzger, director of VIP. "This constitutes a significant progress in the cooperative context and gives us a competitive advantage to offer the best possible service for our clients."
"In 2007, we centralized sales and 13 years later VIP is able to manage Val Venosta’s whole apple production with efficiency, flexibility and highest specialization thanks to its 6 special processing facilities including one for organic apples only," continues Pinzger. "This is an important achievement that we reached with years of commitment and sacrifices and thanks to continuous investment in state-of-the-art plants. This future-oriented process allows VIP to be an efficient and reliable business partner, a real first class apple partner, which is also expressed by our new logo."
"30 years after the birth of our producer organization we proudly present ourselves with our new VIP First class apple partner logo that stands for highest quality, sustainability and excellent service. In Val Venosta, we can count on the high professionalism of our producers working in harmony with nature combined with the most modern facilities to guarantee an extraordinary product quality. Our product assortment consists of an excellent varietal mix with both traditional varieties such as our Golden apple from the mountains, our main variety, and new club varieties such as Envy™, Kanzi® and Ambrosia™."
Fabio Zanesco, Benjamin Laimer and Martin Pinzger at Fruit Logistica 2020
Development of VIP’s sales in the second week of February
"We can look back to a first phase of the season that, unlike the previous one, was very dynamic," explains Fabio Zanesco, sales and marketing manager VIP. "This is mainly due to a more balanced European harvest that is far below the record harvest in 2018. Our sales proceed regularly or even slightly better than planned for all varieties and the price level is definitely more balanced than last year."
As far as the single varieties are concerned, Zanesco says Gala will be available until the end of March, Red Delicious until June and Golden Delicious until September, just as usual. "Let’s now talk about our club varieties: Envy™ will be available until March, Ambrosia™ until April and Kanzi® until the beginning of summer, whereas the sales season for yello® will end during the next weeks."
"We currently have a dynamic market. Due to the generally positive situation we expect to be able to raise our prices during the next days. We nevertheless have to face some challenges, especially concerning smaller fruit sizes where we have to be more aggressive to follow our destocking plan," specifies Zanesco. "As far as the markets are concerned, we have had a receptive Italian market so far despite some difficulties with small fruit sizes. The same is true for Spain."
"I see interesting developments on the other main export markets despite very strong competition on non-European markets. This is why it is even more important to perfectly serve our clients and to offer them promotional programs and measures. We had a slack period between Christmas and the end of January on non-European markets, which, we hope, is over now".
Prospects
"Generally speaking," adds Zanesco, "the prospects for the second part of the season are positive, even though the greatest challenge will be to find a regular sales rhythm for apples of smaller fruit sizes that we are trying to make more attractive to our clients."
"We have all it takes to master the challenges of the future with serenity and competence," concludes Pinzger. "Our unique and distinctive strategic values, built over time, make VIP a reliable and indispensable partner, a real first class partner".