The first greenhouse stone fruits produced in Huelva have been available on the market since the end of March.
"We began collecting the first white and yellow-meat nectarines on March 28. It's the first time in our history that the harvest of both varieties begins at the same time," stated Victoria Martin, commercial manager of the Huelva company Plus Berries.
"They would always start a week apart, but we have had a winter with spring temperatures, which helped the fruit set and develop faster than usual. White nectarines are arriving on normal dates, but some references have arrived up to 10 days earlier than usual."
"This weekend we have started to harvest the white meat peaches and by the middle of this week we will already have four references available, including red peaches," Victoria Martin stated.
Plus Berries has 250 hectares of early stone fruit trees in Huelva where it expects to produce about 4,000,000 kilos of nectarines, peaches, donut peaches, apricots, and plums. In Badajoz, they continue with the middle and late season campaign, with nearly 15,000,000 kilos.
“We can serve our customers from early April to November. Very few suppliers can offer stone fruit with consistent volumes since early April and with varieties that offer good flavor. In addition, our whole range of stone fruit has zero residues, which is highly valued in European markets, especially in France," stated Victoria Martin.
"On the environmental level, we are committed to the zero residue cultivation method, endorsed by the certifier Zerya. That is, when our products arrive at the store, we guarantee that it has zero pesticide residues, provided that the production conditions allow us to do so," she added.
According to Victoria Martin, the first nectarines have been very well received in the market. Consumers and marketers are happy to change products and to start moving the summer fruit. Moreover, there is still uncertainty as to how the sudden rise in production costs will impact profit margins. It will be difficult to pass on these costs to selling prices from the outset. At the moment, the early prices are at acceptable levels," she stated.
For more information:
Victoria Martín
(Responsable comercial y Marketing de Agro Martín)
Grupo Plus Berries
M. 0034 673109821
T. 0034 959504454
victoriamartin@plusberries.com
plusberries.com
agromartin.com