Eastern European countries, with Poland at the forefront, are big consumers of clementines. With the arrival of December, the demand tends to increase even more. This is confirmed by Martucci Srl, an Italian company based in Taranto (Apulia) that specializes in trading citrus fruits, namely oranges and tangerines.
"For the past 10 days or so, demand has increased by as much as 35-40%. We are sending a large quantity of clementines to Poland, Slovakia and Hungary. Our secret is the care in the processing, even though it affects the final costs by about €0.05/kg compared to conventional processing. When you are approaching specific markets, you must, in fact, provide a strategy to minimize the complaints of Eastern European buyers, who often are used to find all possible and imaginable excuses to reduce the purchasing price of the goods, which is already very low. This is why we carry out a double inspection before shipping the supplies," explained Daniele Martucci.
“After collecting the produce from the farmers, we conduct an initial grading, discarding any damaged or unattractive fruit. After that, the clementines are placed in cells for about 12 hours and treated with ozone and temperature-controlled UV lamps. These two combined operations help eradicate any pathogens. It is only after this treatment that the clementines are placed in crates, which is when a second and more accurate selection takes place, and subsequently they are loaded onto trucks."
Workers during the fruit selection phase
"This year, in particular, we are registering great interest in Apulian clementines. Eastern countries have so far sourced first from Greece and Turkey, whose productions do not seem to be of very good quality, and recently also from Albania (Saranda Zone)."
Boxes of clementines
Martucci believes that soon after the Christmas period, things could change, because Albanian buyers will start demanding large quantities of Italian product due to the limited availability of the local product. "For us," said the manager, "working with Albania is convenient. These foreign operators prefer to buy the raw product, exactly as it arrives from the countryside, so they do not have to process it beforehand. This means great savings on labor costs, and on electricity for the plants and cold rooms."
For more information:
Martucci Srl
Via Chiatona,
74016 Massafra (TA)
+39 338 2620262
martucci.export@tiscali.it
martucci.info