Warm weather usually arrives in May, helping with sugar content. But the heat simply didn't arrive on time this year, according to Yasser El Sayed of Global Fruits in Egypt.
"It was late in becoming warm," he said. "Because of that, the sugar was not good enough." It wasn't until well into June that brix levels were high enough to ship - a full month later than usual. With such a delay, there's real danger that the Egyptian export season will be undercut by the Spanish and Italian seasons.
"If the Spanish and Italian seasons are on time, we'll have price issues because they face less shipping costs when exporting to Europe," said El Sayed. Such a situation would mean less Egyptian grapes shipped to Europe, a trend which is already present due to European market conditions.
"The local market is not like the European market," admitted El Sayed. "To sell in the domestic market means less money and less profits, but as we face less demand from our customers in Europe we're forced to raise the share of the local market." But he hopes the late Egyptian season won't add to that, and he believes the weather will work in their favour.
"We live in the same world," he said. "So I believe Italy and Spain will face the same issues as we did."
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