Mehadrin ships their clementines all over the world, with programs for their premium citrus in Scandinavia, France and North America. But most of their Orri clementines are shipped throughout Europe, where they see large demand.
“Everybody worldwide wants the clementine season to start,” says Oron Ziv of Mehadrin, “and it gets difficult to fulfil all our obligations as demand gets so high.”
But he notes that on the heels of a large upcoming crop, Mehadrin should have enough volume to satisfy strong consumer demand. Mehadrin estimates they will harvest and ship between 35,000 and 36,000 tons of Orri clementines this season, 75% more than what they harvested the previous year.
“It's a very typical big season for clementines,” he says, “so we should have plenty of volume. Sizes will run smaller as the tendency is that you get smaller sizing of fruit when you have large crops. So while we'll have Caliber 1xx, 1x and Caliber 2 fruit, which are the most desirable, we'll probably have a higher quantity of smaller sizes like Caliber 3, and Caliber 4s as well .”
Though they've experienced some rain, Ziv doesn't anticipate halting harvesting in the long run.
“We have growing areas all over the country,” he says, “so especially in unstable weather, we can harvest. If you grow all of your crops in one region and it rains there, you can't harvest. But we have it spread out, so we can get around that.”
The harvest season for clementines will last about 12 weeks, which means that Mehadrin will have to pick, pack and ship 3,000 to 4,000 tons of fruit per week. It's a large quantity, but Ziv predicts they'll be able to do it, and satisfy strong demand as the year unfolds.
Mineola
The Mineola’s are harvested and the campaign is now in full swing. “Last week we had some nice promotion with several Dutch supermarket.” Mehadrin is very pleased with the Mineola campaign at the moment.
For more information:
Oron Ziv
Mehadrin
Tel: +31 180 642 570
Fax: +31 180 642 571
[email protected]
www.mtex.co.il