Turkey: Cerry Co. looking forward to citrus season
Aksel urges caution to buyer of lemons, "They should not be in too much of a hurry, the best quality early lemons should be available from 20-25th September. According to our experience any crop before this date does not contain enough juice. But we should also consider thatglobal weather situations and changing seasons might have an effect on crops".
The main markets for Cerry Co. are Europe: Poland, Czech Republic, Holland, Slovakia, Romania, Germany and Spain. With the new season they will also start exporting to Ukraine and Russia.
Aksel expects the volumes of Navels and Meyers to be around the same as last season, at the moment all of the orchards are full with flowers. The lemon production will begin with Meyer and move to Interdonato and then on to Lamas, these varieties lap over as the season progresses. "This year there was still Meyer trading during the Lamas season, however the Interdonato variety affected the Lamas’s price in the domestic markets despite the grade II quality.
Argentinian lemons are running about a month late this season, Aksel says only time will tell what effect this will have on the market during the Turkish season. "Regarding Navel exports only a small quantity will be exported to Europe. The biggest reason being that Turkey has a population of almost 80 million and the orange has a good demand from the Turkish people. This situation keeps the Navel prices a bit higher than Greek and Egyptian Navels".
Aksel says that they expect to export 40-50% less grapefruit in the season 2012-2013 compared to last year. "The reason for this is that there are many orchards which still have grapefruit on the trees which are not harvested yet. In this case the flowering of the tree will be later for the upcoming season’s crops. Normally at this time of the season, all grapefruit orchards would have been harvested and trees already in flower for next season. However these trees will have another flowering in June but that means those fruits will have medium and small sizes". Considering this situation Aksel concludes that the 2012-13 grapefruit season will have 50% less volume but better quality, size and price than the 2011-2012 season.
On the whole Cerry Co. have so far reached all targets set for this season but Aksel says growing also brings other new responsibilities and requirements with it. "Step by step we continue improving our processes, products and markets. This will never end".
Cerry Co have traded under the Basari brand this season, and starting in the new 2012-2013 season they will also release the Cerry brand.
For more information:
Cerry Co, Ltd.
Emre Aksel
Tel: +90 322 352 90 92
[email protected]
www.cerry.co.uk