Mario Schiano lo Morello presented the results of an Ismea survey on the strawberry market.
First of all, he talked about the critical points of the chain: the increase in production costs and the competition from abroad (especially Spain), market segmentation and the investments needed to promote high quality produce.
All of this makes a great specialisation extremely necessary but also puts pressure on prices. In addition, there are less profits for producers and retailers gain a bigger share of the market.
On a total of 182,000 tons, 37,000 (17%) of which are imported, 162,000 (89%) tons are consumed directly through retail (78%) and H&R (22%) channels.
International production
The short shelf-life of strawberries limits the area to the European and Mediterranean countries.
Spain, Egypt, Israel, Greece and Italy harvest between winter and spring. France, Netherlands, Germany and Poland harvest between late spring and summer.
Italy grows the produce mainly in a protected environment (82% of the 3,700 total ha) and only a small part is cultivated in open fields. The main strawberry producing regions are Campania, Basilicata and Veneto.
The main strawberry exporters worldwide are Mediterranean countries. Not considering the US and Mexico, Spain is a leading country, followed by the Netherlands and Belgium.
Italy is not really an exporting country, as only 12% of the produce is exported (20,000 tons in 2013). This figure used to be higher though as, in 2000, 19% of the produce was exported. Italian exports are destined mainly to Germany (43%), Austria (23%), Switzerland (14%) and UK (5%).
In the past few years, imports have been stable at around 35-37,000 tons. Two thirds of the imports come from Spain.
Prices and consumption:
The strawberry market: average at farm-gate price (Euro/kg). The process to improve quality affected the money made by producers according to the variety. The Candonga variety is yellow, the ones from Metapontino are blue, Favetta is grey and the dotted line represents the other varieties from Verona (Click here to enlarge).
Prices at origin in France, Italy and Spain are all different because of the different economic-productive model and according to the quality of the produce.
The wholesale market: a confrontation between prices in Italy and Spain. 18 mm produce in punnets. (Click here to enlarge).
In the last few years, the economic crisis and the drop in fruit consumption led to lower sales and, in 2013, one person consumed on average only 2.6 kg of strawberries.
Fruit purchases dropped by 1.1%, citrus fruit dropped by 1.3% and vegetables by 0.3% (see chart below, displayed in Italian).
Fruit purchases. (Click here to enlarge)
Actually, strawberry demand counter-trended and increased by 2.5% per year. Only soft fruit managed to do better, with an 11% increase.
