The pomegranates in India have reached their premium color-season once again. Pomegranates are of a much deeper red color during this time of the year. With a current gap in the market, one Indian pomegranate exporter expects demand to be high for the upcoming weeks.
According to Kay Bee Exports CEO Kaushal Khakhar, it’s currently one of the better periods of the year for good pomegranates from India: “India continues to be the only country in the world which harvests pomegranates all 365 days of the year. As such, we are always in season! The summer months of April to June provide a lighter color fruit, but things improve back to normal from the month of July. We are able to secure deep red fruit from both outside and inside at the moment. We had slightly early rains this year in early June. This really helped with achieving better coloration and early maturity of the pomegranates.”
When pomegranates are always in season, there’s bound to be competition. However at certain moments, Kay Bee Exports can fill a gap, Khakhar explains: “We expect demand to be higher than usual, as other origin fruits are currently not in season and there is a gap in the market. Our focus markets are UK and EU countries. We expect them to support with strong demand in the coming weeks. Our volumes this year have grown significantly."
"We ship majority of our volumes in the winter months and managed to ship out most of our orders before lockdown was announced in India. Except for these few summer months, we always compete with some of the other origins of pomegranates. However, the Indian variety is quite liked for its great visual appeal and superior eating quality. The arils are soft and sweet and are available all 365 days with the same quality and color. This allows us to give a very competitive offer to our customers who are looking for annual supply.”
The Indian pomegranates make their way across the globe, but Europe and South East Asia remain the strongest markets for Kay Bee: “We ship our pomegranates worldwide, including the USA. The Indian authorities are working quite hard to secure new market access. For us, Europe, South East Asia and Middle East remain quite strong markets. Recently, we have secured access to Australia,” Khakhar says.
Kay Bee Exports aims to increase production of pomegranates every year: “We continue to invest in more acreage for pomegranate production. We have pomegranate farms in three different geographies and all three are currently in production. The other window for self-production that we target is December to March. Having our in-house production gives us very good controls on food safety and at the same time reliable supply,” he concludes.
For more information:
Kaushal Khakhar
Kay Bee Exports
Office: +91 22 41578900
Email: kaushal@kaybeeexports.com
www.kaybeeexports.com