Chilean cherry export's boom

An auspicious season for the central area. Amounts grew significantly thanks to the combination of factors like quality, production and demand. Producers talk about an historical year.

Cherries have caught the attention again and raises fruit producers expectations. From 2008 to today, exported amounts have grown significantly, despite some setbacks result of weather conditions like cold winter, spring frosts and harvest rains, reflecting the dependency on weather conditions.

Anyway, for the present season, expectations among businessmen are high and they talk about an historical year regarding exports. Antonio Walker, president of FEDEFRUTA highlighted the performance of this fruit regarding production and market.

"We expect that, for this season, there will be an historical registry regarding amounts. We had it all. Good fruit quality, good profits, good size, and adding to it, we had the weather on our side, which is fundamental for the cherry. With this, Chile might reach 14,000,000 boxes, in circumstances which in the past, the maximum we got was 11,500,000 boxes", explained a FEDEFRUTA representative.

Claudio Vergara, businessman and production manager for Viveros Rancagua, with productions in the Metropolitan Region, VI region and Chile Chico (XI region), added that, in production terms, "we saw that our orchards, heavy last year, had a smaller amount of fruit this year, translated in better quality fruits. We can say it's a season for less kilos per hectare, but with better fruit", he expressed.

In fact, by week 52, according to market numbers, Chilean cherry exports rose by 12% regarding the same period last year, adding up to 57,196 tons. The rise is explained, mainly by an increase in exports to the Far East, a market that, regarding the last campaign, had a 46% growth with 34,624 tons and in a smaller extent, by the growth in Latin America and Middle East, that registered growths of 19.1% and 17.4%, respectively.

Source: Comunicaciones Fedefruta