Spanish cherry season to start late and with small volumes

This, together with the impact of occasional frosts, will cause cherry volumes to be lower than expected in the first stages of the campaign.

"Low temperatures and rainfall during the blossom period caused bees to stop pollinating for a few days. In the third week of March, temperatures dropped as low as -3 °C in some production areas," explains David Manero, partner of the company Cerima Cherries.

"We'll have smaller volumes of early cherries, but with larger calibres, since there will be less fruit on the trees. Following the first stage, volumes should go back to more normal levels, although they will still not be too large," he continues.

With such a scenario, David predicts an interesting campaign regarding prices and quality. "We are very optimistic about this season if the weather remains favourable. Currently, we anticipate it will be very positive in terms of prices, since production volumes will not be large," he points out.

"We'll start with the Early Big variety around 30 April, which is very suitable for the European markets, but cannot be exported to more distant markets because of its his short shelf life," states David.

Cerima Cherries has 350 hectares distributed in different production areas, and plans to compensate for this lack of volume in the first stage of the campaign with the volume of new farms entering production. "We continue to invest in new plantations every year and we continue to increase our volume. This year we hope to reach 4 million kilos," points out the producer and exporter.

"90% of our operations focus on exports and we have consolidated in traditional markets of the European Union, although we are increasingly gaining ground in the Middle East, Dubai and Qatar and we continue to expand our air shipments to Asia through Hong Kong, especially after the veto in Russia prevented our further growth in this market."

The company's commitment to the exclusive production of cherries is its differentiating factor. "We specialise solely in cherries and we control the entire production process."