Usually South Africa’s first nectarines and peaches coincide with the last Spanish nectarines and Italian Angeleno plums, but this year they arrived on an empty market after a poor European stonefruit season.
“For us it’s looking very positive at the moment. Over the next few weeks our volumes will increase,” says Chris Swart of CoreFruit.
“We haven’t yet loaded much to Europe. Our focus during the early part of the season remains the UK market, due to demand.”
They have been shipping early nectarines from Rustenburg in the North West Province, and this week they’ll start packing nectarines from Tulbagh, premier stonefruit region in the Western Cape.
The stonefruit industry estimates that the nectarine crop will be 11% up and that peaches will be 5% up.
Plums in particular benefited from past winter
After three years of sub-par plum seasons, an “unbelievable” winter with no fewer than five snowfalls have spurred a big upturn in plum fortunes.
Excellent fruit set has been the result of the fine winter and consequently plum volumes are estimated at 22% higher than last year.
CoreFruit’s first plums, African Rose, will be packed towards the end of this week.
Photos supplied by CoreFruit
Stonefruit with its short shelf life is less resilient to harbour delays than apples and citrus by necessity had to be six months ago, so they’re pinning their hopes on improved effectiveness at Cape Town Harbour.
“We’re feeling very confident about the season at this point. For our farmers’ sake we hope for a good season. They have had a couple of difficult years with the drought.”
For more information:
Chris Swart
CoreFruit
Tel: +27 21 863 6300
Emal: [email protected]
http://www.corefruit.com/