The 2023 French stone fruit campaign has experienced a great deal of turmoil: climatic hazards impacting production, excess volumes, a bottleneck market, low prices, and a weather forecast not always helping consumption. Raphaël Martinez, Director of the PDO Pêches et Abricots de France, reviews the past few weeks and looks ahead to the final stretch.
With one month remaining before the end of the season, and despite losses due to various weather events, apricot production is up 15%, while peach nectarines are showing a 5-10% increase on initial forecasts.
Apricots: "We dodged a bullet"
The first part of the campaign was marked by quality problems related to the spring rains," begins Raphaël. In addition, large volumes arrived at the end of June, when consumption was at a low ebb". The outcome? A clogged market in the 1st fortnight of July, with large volumes of Bergeron unable to be sold immediately. "We tried to boost sales by offering adjusted prices, both to producers and consumers". In early July, the PDO already alerted supermarkets. Faced with the large quantities of Spanish products on wholesale channels, while French products are sold at prices far too low, the PDO and the Fédération des Producteurs de Fruits are also asking the UNCGFL for help. "Wholesalers have heard our plea. We've set up an information exchange channel to get them to promote French products and help us sell off stocks".
For ten days now, the situation seems to be clearing up. Falling stocks and improved sales have enabled us to sell off a good part of our production. That leaves Bergeron, which should see its campaign come to an end around August 20, followed by the remaining late varieties until early September. "While most of the production was sold fresh, higher volumes were shipped for industrial processing compared with previous years".
Although the Peaches and Apricots PDO has observed "a rise in prices in certain networks" over the last few days, sales will nonetheless be lower than last year. "This won't be a good campaign," warns Raphaël, pointing to the "15 to 20 days of very low prices. Overall, we've dodged a bullet, but there are many lessons to be learned from this season, and there's still a lot of work to be done!
Sales on the export market have been rising since mid-July, due to lower production levels in Spain, Italy, and Switzerland.
Peach nectarines: an "active" week ahead, thanks to the weather
At the end of June, Raphaël Martinez expressed his concern about the influx of large volumes in a bottlenecked market, in the middle of the Spain-France switchover period in supermarkets.
Competition is particularly fierce for French round white peaches, which are seeing some of their market share taken by Spanish flat peaches.
Overall, "there's been no global disaster in recent weeks. We've managed to keep production on course, with prices adapted to consumption without falling into the lowest levels". And after further damage to production in the Drôme (tornado) and Roussillon (hail) regions last week, this week looks rather positive, thanks to the good weather, with a high level of sales activity until August 25, and better prices for sure. "We're hopeful that we'll get back on our feet".
For more information:
Raphaël Martinez
AOP Peaches and Apricots de France
Tel.: +33 (0)6 09 98 38 09
[email protected]
