“The citrus fruit campaign is facing a difficult period as, despite the constant collaboration with our suppliers of raw materials, we have not seemed to achieve the volumes planned for the third year running. This year too, although we had envisaged a 30% drop in the availability of the fruit destined for commercialization with respect to the already-low quantities processed during the previous campaign, we are ending the blood orange season with very low volumes," reports Salvatore Imbesi, director at Ortogel, a leading international player in the citrus fruit sector for the processing of Sicilian citrus fruit juice.
Salvatore Imbesi
“During this first week of April 2023, there are very few companies that are still harvesting blood oranges. This is due to the reduction of the volumes available caused mainly by the weather - characterized by high temperatures and lack of rain over seven months - and by the two floods at the end of 2022 on top of the hail, strong winds and tornadoes of early 2023."
"Orange flows that reach industrial processing plants as juice have hit an all-time low, so quantities processed do not exceed 40% of the volumes with respect to the past season. Unfortunately, we can only report what producers tell us: theirs is an increasingly hard job, now at the mercy of climate change that can destroy entire productions in just a few hours. It is a serious problem that is only addressed for propaganda purposes, but to which those who can actually do something - politicians and the Institutions - continue to turn a deaf ear. This without even a minimal knowledge of what is happening in the fresh and processed citrus fruit industries."
“It would be urgent to take decisions, having listened to the agricultural, industrial and commercial sectors, in order to come up with a long-term plan to find solutions that can work for a sector that continues with courage but which, at the moment, can only continue to invest by replacing the trees affected by the Tristeza (CTV) virus. We need much more, and we need to work together with politicians like never before."
In Italy, the area showing the highest reduction of groves on an annual basis is Sicily, which has lost 3.5% of groves. In particular, since 2019, 500 hectares were lost in the Catania province, 370 in Agrigento and 1,000 in Messina."
For further information:
Ortogel Spa
C.da Balchino Zona Industriale
95039 Caltagirone (CT) (Italy)
Tel.: +39 0933 1902800
Cell.: +39 348 8949166
Email: info@ortogel.com
Web: www.ortogel.com