"We have noticed peach sales have picked up in Europe - we had not seen anything like it for years. Nectarines remain the most popular, but demand is lively for peaches as well. This is probably due to the high quality and lack of produce from countries with more competitive prices such as Spain and Greece," reports Mirco Zanelli, sales director at Apofruit.
"We expected the market to be livelier due to the general lack of produce. At the moment, prices vary between €1.20-1.40/kg for nectarines in punnets and €1.50-1.70 for graded produce in basket boxes. Peaches make around 10 eurocents less. In a normal years, these would be good prices but, this year, we expected something more."
The situation should improve over the next few weeks, as some production areas will finish their produce, so additional sales channels should free up.
An aspect that must be taken into consideration for this weird 2021 is margins. "Although anything and everything has been said when it comes stone fruit, the only certainty is the increase in the cost of raw materials. The price of plastic, packaging and pallets has doubled, meaning costs will be higher per kg of produce."
"White nectarines and peaches are doing well in Great Britain, where prices exceed those of the yellow fruits. The only problem is the bureaucracy due to Brexit and the higher logistic costs caused by the increase in the price of fuel oil."