It was already clear before the opening of the 2023 season that the Italian stone fruit campaign would have been anomalous in terms of quantity, quality and sales, but for there to be so little interest in the Italian product in Europe, was something that growers and traders had not anticipated.
Claudio D'Alba, CEO of Plantis Group, a company based in the southern Italian region of Puglia that supplies fruit to wholesale markets and foreign supermarket chains, reiterates that nothing has changed for the export sector over the past month except that prices have dropped significantly. "The European market is reluctantly absorbing Italian stone fruit. Everything is going very slowly. Foreign buyers continue to prefer peaches, apricots and nectarines from Spain, Greece and Turkey, as they are 20-30% cheaper than our product."
"This situation has forced us to focus on grape sales, a product that seems to give us more guarantees and satisfactory results in terms of demand and prices. Indeed, these are 10% higher than in the same period last year. Sales of apricots, peaches and nectarines will of course continue, but they are certainly not our priority," continued D'Alba.
Currently, the Plantis Group sells traditional grape varieties such as Victoria, Black Magic and Red Globe from Sicily. "We are sending more than 50 pallets a week mainly to Scandinavia, and in a week, we should also be able to start with the seedless varieties from Puglia. We also feel competition for grapes, including from Egypt, but it is certainly less aggressive than for stone fruit, also because the quality of Italian grapes seems remarkably good."
For more information:
Plantis Group
Piazza Ebalia 1
74123 Taranto
(+39) 099 671 4801
info@plantis.it
www.plantis.it