In the Netherlands, the Spanish stone fruit season is in full swing at Wilko Fruit. "That will last until October 10," says Wilko van der Zwaard. According to him, there is no shortage in the stone fruit market. "Slightly less trade, especially apricots, came from the Murcia region this year. But there's plenty of stone fruit available now."
"There's a slight gap in the flat peach supply this week. These have actually been too cheap recently, but fortunately, prices have picked up quite a bit. Peach and nectarine prices are also higher than a few weeks ago. The last two weeks aren't a good reference, though, because of the bad Dutch weather. Now we have beautiful late summer weather, and people are returning from vacation, so sales are improving," explains Wilco.
"The fruits - both peaches and nectarines - sizes have improved considerably too. There are currently few small sizes, while at the start of the season, there was a surplus of those. Apricot sizing's also good this year." Wilco sees peaches becoming particularly popular again. "The rise of flat peaches' popularity isn't at peaches' expense with us. Several Spanish peach growers have switched to nectarines, causing a peach shortage in some periods," he says.
Cherries have long been Wilko Fruit's flagship product. "It's the first product my grandfather started with in 1934, and today my son Alejandro is the fourth generation representing cherries. I can, thus, safely say we specialize in this product."
Gaudias, Fruits for Pleasure
At Wilko Fruit, the Dutch cherry season will last another week or two. "The Kordia season's over. We'll get the Final variety of late cherries soon. The season was good and stable. The extremely high prices in Spain made it tough to set prices for a while, but I think the Dutch growers have never had so much happen as this year. Retailers ran fewer promotions because the cherries were too expensive," Wilco concludes.
For more information:
Wilko van der Zwaard
Wilkofruit b.v
14 Heilaar-Noordweg
4841 ZZ, Prinsenbeek, NL
Tel: +31 (0) 765 244 460
Emails: [email protected] / [email protected]
Website: www.wilkofruit.com
