Last week, the Board of Directors of Afrucat and the Director General of Food, Quality and Agricultural Food Industries of the DARP went to the headquarters of Edeka, the German distribution chain, where its marketing manager, Francisco Contreras, spoke to them about the promotion campaign undertaken by the chain for the year 2017.
Contreras said that, at the request of Afrucat, in July the chain would dedicate promotional actions to the flat peach. These actions include more than 700 specialized tastings at the chain's stores, magazine reports, newspaper advertisements and cookery programs featuring bloggers.
Edeka, the main German distribution chain with 25% of the market share, plans to double the sales of flat peaches from the area of Catalonia thanks to this campaign. According to Contreras, "we see a lot of potential in this product, as it's having a very good acceptance among our customers. We predict that this can translate into a domino effect and that demand for flat peaches from the rest of the German operators will increase."
Edeka is carrying out promotional activities to publicize different species and varieties of fruit among its consumers and, thus, boost their consumption. The chosen fruits need to have some differentiating characteristics, such as their origin, or a novelty value, and they also have to have a growth potential.
Francisco Torres, President of Afrucat, promised a smooth supply of flat peaches from Catalonia to meet the increase in demand this July and stressed the importance of this taking place in chains that have higher prices than the German hard discounters and that offer a wide range of high quality products.
Torres also said that "any action that encourages the demand for stone fruit will positively contribute to the relaxation of market prices for stone fruits."
Carmel Modol, the Director General of Food, Quality and Agricultural Food Industries of the DARP, offered all the necessary collaboration on the part of the administration as long as "the promotion campaign is respectful of the quality of our product and with the work of our producers."
Currently Germany is the main destination for the Catalan stone fruit (followed by far by France and Italy), as they purchase 50,000 tons of peaches and 54,000 tons of nectarines. Germany also represents the main destination for these Spanish fruit, as the country sent 105,000 tons of peaches and 114,000 tons of nectarines during the year 2016.
