The Indian grape season is coming up shortly, as one exporter expects his first shipments to be sent to Russia in week 46. The extreme weather conditions in India have mostly spared the grape growing regions, which means the harvest is looking good both in terms of volumes as well as quality.
According to Samir Singh, business promoter for Indian grape exporter Mersel Foods, the floods and rains have not had a major impact on the grape growing regions in India: “There have been relentless rains in some parts of north India this summer resulting in floods and landslides, causing extensive damage to infrastructure and loss of lives. However, Western India, especially the grape growing regions of Maharashtra, have been by and large spared. In some areas around Nashik, where the grape plants where in the flowering stage, scattered rainfall did have some damaging impact. India seems to be handling the Covid-situation very well, having more than a billion people vaccinated with at least one jab. Restrictions are being lifted and economic activities are back on track. This is good news as we are approaching the grapes season.”
For the upcoming season, Mersel Foods intends to introduce new paper-based punnets for the grapes, Singh explains. “We export white seedless grapes, Thompson and Sonaka, red seedless grapes of the Flame variety as well as black seedless grapes; Sharad and Jumbo, to the EU, UK, Russia, and Canada. Our sales offices are based in the EU (Riga, Latvia), UK (London) and Russia (Moscow). We also keep a stock of grapes at Rotterdam, Riga, London, and Moscow for sales on spot basis. Our smart and precise post-harvest practices, featuring pre-fumigation of grapes, have resulted in improving parameters like stem color and the shelf life of grapes. Keeping the ecology of the environment in mind, we’re going to introduce paper-based punnets for 500g in the coming season. We plan to load containers to Russia from week 46, to the EU from week 4, to the UK from week 5, and to Canada from week 7.”
Singh states that growers have seen the benefit of ensuring the best quality of the produce and are now undertaking smart farming practices to reach the preferred quality. “Given the conditions so far, we’re expecting a sound harvest of grapes both on quality and volume. Last year, the quality of Indian grapes was perceived to be good in most of the markets. Growers are becoming increasingly aware of the benefits of high-quality harvest and are undertaking smart farming-practices to improve the quality of grapes. The coming years will see more and more of the premium-quality grapes being exported from India.”
The increased costs of both packaging and transport are problematic for Indian grape exporters: “However, we do face serious challenges, mainly the substantial increase in the cost of packaging materials and embarrassingly high freight rates, which is currently to the tune of 8000 USD per reefer container for Rotterdam. The latter poses a real threat to the market price of grapes going unreasonably high, resulting in lower demand. The export volume of grapes during the season will greatly depend on the freight rates. If the current level of freight rate persists, the export volume in 2022 will be less than it was during the same period of the previous year. Availability of containers is another issue of grave concern to all exporters. We are left with nothing but to wait and see as to how situation unfolds in two to three months’ time.” Singh concludes.
For more information:
Mr. Samir Singh
Mersel Foods Pvt. Ltd.
Tel: +371-29516075
Email: samir@unisel.lv
www.merselfoods.com