The Albafruit company is starting its 16th campaign of Moroccan grapes. A season that this year looks promising both in terms of volume and quality: "The good weather and the last few days of heat have helped increase the sugar content of the grapes. We are hoping for a good harvest", reports Christophe Ochs, manager of Albafruit.
Christophe Ochs
Primeur grapes from Morocco: a guarantee of freshness
The first arrivals will take place on May 20th and 21st. As every year, the Moroccan production is highly anticipated: "These are the first grapes from the northern hemisphere with the origin Egypt. Of course, there is still some South African, South American and Indian origin left on the market at the end of the season, but in terms of quality, there is no comparison with Moroccan fresh grapes. We particularly like to work with this origin since it is a guarantee of freshness.
The geographical proximity of the European market to Morocco allows for a very short transit time. The Moroccan origin is also interesting because it does not compete with the French origin available much later in the year.
Seedless grapes: a rising product in France
When Christophe Ochs started marketing seedless grapes at the request of a buyer, the German, Belgian and Scandinavian markets were already well developed. On the French market, however, there was no particular interest in seedless varieties. However, in recent years, sales volumes have been increasing: "Seedless grapes are very popular with young people. This product is thriving in France. On the other hand, even though grapes used to be consumed out of season, today the product has gained in popularity, and the desire to have access to quality grapes before the French season has become well established. The production is also expanding, especially with new varieties being planted.
Calendar of Moroccan grape varieties
This week, the seedless white grape (Grapaes Early Sweet) will kick off the Moroccan season. This will be followed by the seedless red grape Passion Fire (ARRA 29), the Sugarone variety, Sugardrop (ARRA 30), and finally late varieties such as the white grape ARRA 15 and the Midnight Beauty, a seedless black grape variety that will close the season at the end of July. "In the meantime, of course, we will have the famous Prima variety, a true classic of the black seeded grape, which has been gaining popularity on the French market for years."
It is now possible to find the variety Grapaes Early Sweet in trays of 10 x 500g and paper bags packages of 4.5 kg.
Juan Merino and Christophe Ochs at MedFEL 2022
For more information:
Christophe Ochs
Juan Merino
Albafruit
Tel. : +33 5 63 04 60 04
contact@albafruit.fr
www.albafruit.fr