The Turkish citrus season is in full swing and so far both volumes and quality are within expectations, says Coskun Eren, marketing manager for Turkish fresh produce exporter Eren: “Turkish citrus starts around August and ends around May when it comes to exports. Currently, we are well inside the mid-season and progressing into the late season at this point. We’ve started taking product into storage, based on our programs for long term storage until May. The harvest is still going on, but we’re also filling the bank for a rainy day later on. The season has no major problems, volumes and quality are okay as of now.”
Demand usually spikes up just before the holiday, and according to Eren, as such they’re currently in the thick of it. “Demand for Lamas has been quite alright. I wouldn’t say it is incredible, but certainly within expectations and we are shipping regularly. The mid-season mandarin demand has been quite good. We were barely managing to ship everything as we were at 100 per cent production capacity for more than a month now, and we can’t complain about that, it was good. As for the late mandarins, we will be starting them within one or two weeks’ time. As far as the volumes go, we are expecting a 10 to 15 per cent increase compared to last season, so things are looking good. We are excited and also finalizing our last programs for the retail at the moment. There seems to be no issues with the quality as of yet.”
“Our most important markets are the EU, Russia and North America as well as some countries in the Far East. Christmas is a busy time for us. Especially the weeks leading up to it, meaning right now. Our customer' order weeks in advance and we try to load as much as possible during fourth week of November as well as the first and second weeks of December. During the holidays or the days leading right up to it, there is almost no demand, but the surge before that surely covers the average shipped amount on a monthly basis.”
A large harvest has resulted in lower prices this year, for the competition as well, Eren explains. “The prices are a bit lower than last season, because the volumes are good this year. But that is the case for Spain and Greece as well, we’re all following suit. Citrus usually makes one full, one empty in terms of annual volumes, so this is a full year. We have more than we can eat locally, so this definitely reflects to the export prices. It is hard to put a percentage on how much lower the prices are, but they are definitely better compared to last season.”
The season is not yet finished, and Eren still has goals and expectations to chase before it ends: “Our expectation is to surpass ourselves. We believe our best competition is Eren. This year we have also introduced automatic filling and quality selection via optics and software. We aim to bring these systems to 100% capacity next season, currently we are at %70-80 capacity in usage at the present. We try to implement new technologies at the every opportunity and these two systems will bring us closer to our Industry 4.0 goals. With the labor situation getting worse every year, we need systems in place to make sure we can always fulfil our customers programs, even if we can’t find the suitable labor we need to operate. We have made very good progress in that regard this year. We have better control over quality and our production capacity is expected to double next year since we will be utilizing automation as well as traditional labor,” Eren concludes.
For more information:
Coskun Eren
Eren
Tel: +90 533 695 5802
Email: coskun@erentarim.com
www.freshanatolia.com