The first loadings of this season's Chilean stone fruit started in week 49 last year, with the full sales programs underway by January. The season is running slightly earlier than normal due to heatwaves in the growing regions.
"We have been running around a week early," said Boris Manz from UK importer Fruit Growers Alianza. "Despite the heat, the quality of the fruit has been very good, and we reached the peak of the season in weeks 6-8. We are now into the last three weeks of stone fruit from Chile and expect to finish up in week 14. Considering that we had an early start, we are very pleased with how the season is ending as quality has remained very good."
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First season of flat nectarines
Among the different stone fruit categories, the apricot is a very small part of what FGA does; they don't ship any by sea. "The peaches have had a very good season, as have the nectarines. This is the second year that we have done flat nectarines on a full program, and it has gone very well. Plums, however, have not been as predicted for the last couple of weeks, with sales lower than expected. We hope to see interest increase when the other stone fruit is finished, though."
FGA imports around 5-6 containers per week, which are sold to 6-7 different retailers. All the fruit is programmed. In the EU, where the market is similar to the UK, they sell to 4-5 retailers, and sales have also gone well in Europe this season.
"The nice spring weather makes people buy more stone fruit, so we see this more clearly in the EU. The UK tends to be more stable, and retailers tend to do more promotions."
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Logistics
Boris said that logistics have been very stable for the last couple of seasons as they have been using alternative ports to provide a stable supply to their customers. He commented that the knock-on effect of the delays at Cape Town did cause congestion in the UK ports and, at times, an oversupply to the retailers when a few vessels of fruit arrived at the same time.
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Cherries
"Chilean cherries have a few difficult seasons with sales concentrated in China, but this market is not performing as well as expected, so more Chilean cherries have been arriving in the UK, and we have seen massive promotions and increases in sales. We have considerably increased the volumes of cherries sold in the last two seasons. The change in price has motivated retailers to promote cherries during the Chilean import window."
Upcoming grape season
"There are a lot of South African grapes around just now, so FGA will have our first arrivals to the UK and EU in two weeks. The crop is looking very good; volumes will be a bit lower than last year, which is not a bad thing. The quality is good, and the loading has been good so far."
For more information:
Boris Manz
Fruit Growers Alianza
[email protected]
