A new strawberry season is already underway in the southern Spanish province of Huelva, which is the leading producer on the European continent. Although each season brings its own challenges, many of them unexpected, the results obtained in the latest campaign have made it possible to start this season with good prospects.
Despite the low production rate that was recorded in the first quarter of the 2020/21 campaign, marked by the consequences of the passage of storm Filomena, various campaign reports published by the Prices and Markets Observatory of the government of Andalusia (with data from December to July) show that strawberry exports increased by 6% in terms of volume and by 19% in terms of value compared to the previous one. Also, the price at origin reached the highest level on record, with 1.34 € / kg.
"So far, the start of the 2021/22 campaign has been good. We are harvesting a fairly high quality fruit," says José Carlos Romero, CEO of Good Berry Fruits. "Prices are a little lower, but this Christmas has been marked by the economic slowdown due to the pandemic and the latest wave of contagions, and the sector has felt it. There has also been a rise in production and labor costs."
"However, at the consumption level, the situation has led consumers to improve their culinary culture and to become more aware of the healthiness of fruits and vegetables, including berries. We have the advantage of being the pantry of Europe and that has helped us achieve an upturn in consumption and in our exports."
In the case of Good Berry Fruits, the increase in exports has been linked to its quick development since it was founded in 2019.
"At Good Berry we have professionals with more than 20 years of experience in the berry sector. In 2019, we took the leap to start a new project with young people with new ideas, reaching more destinations, but also eager to respect the environment, and we have found quite a few producers in Huelva who share our philosophy. The first year we started marketing berries we reached 3 countries; the following year, we grew to 20, and in 2021 we have taken our fruit to 43 destinations, exporting 2,000 tons of strawberries, 3,000 tons of blueberries, 400 tons of raspberries and 80 tons of blackberries," says José Carlos. "At the same time, we have launched a line of nuts and we also market chestnuts produced in the mountains of Huelva."
"We work with berries 52 weeks of the year and, outside the Spanish campaign period, which for us has absolute priority, we have marketing lines open with other producing destinations in Europe, South America and Africa."
"The main destination market for our fruit is Europe. The Asian market has been important for us, but this year the logistical difficulties caused by the pandemic have made exporting almost impossible," says José Carlos Romero. "However, this problem has also made us see that we are capable of reinventing ourselves and has made us all much more professional."
A sector with great strength
In fact, after the drop in the volume of Andalusian strawberries marketed in the 2019/20 campaign, when domestic consumption fell due to the outbreak of the pandemic at the peak of the production period, in the 2020/21 campaign the sector not only managed to recover the normal production and marketing volumes compared to the previous campaign, but also grew by almost 3% compared to the 2018/19 campaign, reaching almost 350,000 tons, according to data from the Government of Andalusia. 99.6% of that volume came from the province of Huelva, which accounted for 23.8% of the total Andalusian production.
"There is greater professionalization in all origins, but I think that Huelva's sector has the advantage of the experience acquired in all the years that we have been learning and developing. It is true that the quality of other origins, such as Morocco, is very good because there is a lot of involvement and support from governments in the agricultural sector; however, as we see it, having the constant threat of such a close competitor helps us stay on our toes and motivates us to keep fighting to always deliver the highest quality to consumers. If the strawberries from Huelva were threatened by competition from other productions in the middle of the season, I think that, rather than a success on their part, it would be evidence of our failure."
For more information:
José Carlos Romero
Good Berry Fruits
C/ Galera, 4
21100 Punta Umbría, Huelva, Spain
Tel.: +34 661 182 793
josecarlos@goddberryfruits.es
https://goodberryfruits.es